
Book_____JLi_ 



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TOBACCO 

JN >^ >^ ^ ^ 
SONG AND STORY 

COMPILED BY 

JOHN 'BAIN, Jr. 







' It may be weeds Pve gathered^too : 
But even weeds may be as f7'agr4tnt 
As the fairest fiower with so7ne 
Sweet memory.'^ 



NEW YORK 

ARTHUR GRAY & CO 

1896 




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Copyright, 1896, 

BV 

ARTHUR GRAY. 



THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS, 
RAHWAY, N. J. 



I* 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Sir Walter Raleigh. Sketch, ... 7 

The Discovery of Tobacco, . . .20 

A Few Words About Tobacco, . . 23 

Origin of Tobacco, Conte Arabe, . . 24 

Philosophy of Smoking, . . . 26-35 
The Smoking Philosopher, Marryat. — 
With Pipe and Book, Richard Le Galli- 
enne.—Ca.Tlyle 'on Tobacco.— In Favor 
of Tobacco, Samuel Rowlands.— K Pipe 
of Tobacco, Isaac H. Brozune.—Bulwev- 
Lytton on Tobacco Smoking.— Invoca- 
tion to Tobacco, Henry James Mellen. — 
The Happy Smoker, E. Bonfils.—^^XQ. 
Slick on the Virtues of a Pipe.— Opinion 
of St. Pierre.— Smoke Dreams, A. B, 
Tucker. — Guizot. — My Pipe, German 
Smoking Song. 

iii 



IV CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Poetry of Smoke, 36-70 

Latakia, T. B. Aldrich.—^MhMvcL^ To- 
bacco, Lord Byron.— Yirginia, Tobacco, 
/o/in Stanley Gregson.—K Good Cigar, 
Norris Bull.— A Poet's Pipe, Richard 
Heme Shepherd.— TYiq Happy Smoking 
Ground, Richard Le Gallienne. — A 
Farewell to Tobacco, Charles Lamb.— 
Inscription for a Tobacco Jar, Cope.— 
The Scent of a Good Cigar, Kate A, 
Carrington. — In the OV Tobacker 
Patch, S. Q. Lapius.— Motto for a To- 
bacco Jar.— A Stub of Cigar, Volney 
Streamer.— The Pipe You Make Your- 
self, Henry E. Brown.— ^vaokvag Away, 
Francis Miles Blench. — Tobacco, Geo. 
Wither.— A Maiden's Wish.— My Cigar- 
ette, Charles F. Lumm is. —Those Ashes, 
R. K. Munkit trick.— lAoyv It Once Was, 
New York Sun.— Beer, George Arnold. 
On a Tobacco Jar, Bernard Barker.— 
'Twas Off the Blue Canaries, Joseph 
Warren Fabetts.—ln Wreaths of Smoke, 
Frank Newton Holman.— The Old Clay 
Pipe, A. B. Van /^^^^/.— Knickerbocker, 
Austin Dobson. — Ode to Tobacco, C. S. 
Calverley. — My Friendly Pipe, Detroit 
Tribune.— Choosing a Wife by a Pipe of 
Tobacco, Gentleman'* s Magazine. — A 
Bachelor's Soliloquy, Edmund Day.— 
I Like Cigars, Ella Wheeler Wilcox. 



CONTENTS. V 

PAGE 

Smokers' Stories, 71-99 

Bismarck's Last Cigar.— The Uses of 
Cigar Ash. — Jules Sandeau on the 
Cigar.— Tennyson as a Smoker.— To- 
bacco in North America. — Shakespeare 
and Tobacco.— The Etymology of To- 
bacco.— Emerson and Carlyle.— Napo- 
leon's First Pipe. — Mazzini's Sang-froid 
as a Smoker.— A Smoker in Venice. — 
Milton's Pipe.— Professor Huxley on 
Smoking.— Robert Burns' Snuff-Box.— 
A Smoking Empress. — An Ingenious 
Smoker. — Raleigh's Tobacco-Box. — 
Smoking in 1610.— Pigs and Smokers. — 
The Social Pipe. 



Tobacco Facts, loo-ioi 

Ages Attained by Great Smokers. 

Some Salesmen and Others, . . 102-116 

Puffs, 117-126 



INTRODUCTION. 

A GOOD book needs no eloquent pen 
to etch its merits in the way of an intro- 
duction. 

It was evident, however, to the com- 
piler of this book, that no volume treating 
on Tobacco had heretofore appeared 
which contained all that deserved a place 
in the literature of the weed, and at the 
same time avoided the scientific treatises 
and exhaustive histories on the subject 
which have no interest to the great army 
of smokers. 

This, in brief, is the object of this 
anthology. All the illustrations in this 
little volume have been drawn especially 
for it. The binding and paper are in 
keeping with the best mechanical features 



ii INTRODUCTION. 

of any book ; while its handy size makes 
of it a book in which any smoker may 
delight. 

There is something in the book that 
will appeal to every lover of the weed, 
no matter what his station in Hfe may be 
or the grade of tobacco he consumes. It 
is not meant to be any more a book for 
the smoker of twenty-five cent cigars than 
for the man behind the clay pipe. 

It is intended to be a book of good 
fellowship, in which all smokers are free 
and equal. 



TOBACCO IN SONG AND 
STORY. 




SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 



WALTER RALEIGH'S 

name will always, among the 
English-speaking races, be 
linked with that of Tobacco. 
Raleigh it was who, in the 
sixteenth century, found tobacco on the 
plantations of Virginia, and introduced 
it into England and Ireland, along with 
the potato. He planted both upon his 
estate at Gongall, Ireland, the home 
presented to him by the auburn-haired, 



8 SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 

falcon-faced Elizabeth, England's one 
great queen, for services rendered upon 
the Spanish Main and in the then New 
World. 

Columbus was the first European to 
discover tobacco. When he and his 
companions saw the Indians smoking it 
and blowing the smoke through their 
nostrils, they were as much surprised as 
they had been at the first sight of land. 
But they were no more surprised than 
Ben Jonson, Beaumont, Selden, Fletcher, 
and Shakespeare when, one stormy night. 
Sir Walter Raleigh walked into the Mer- 
maid tavern and, throwing pipes and 
tobacco upon the table, invited all hands 
to smoke. Shakespeare thought that it 
was anticipating things a little to smoke 
in this world, and that Bacon should have 
the monopoly of it ; while Ben Jonson — 
" rare Ben," the roundest and fattest and 
gruffest of men — after the first pipeful or 
two, growled : ** Tobacco, I do assert, 
without fear of contradiction from the 



SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 9 

Avon skylark, is the most soothing, sov- 
ereign, and precious weed that ever our 
dear old Mother Earth tendered to the 
use of man ! Let him who would con- 
tradict that most mild, but sincere and 
enthusiastic assertion, look to his under- 
taker. Sir Walter, your health." Then 
everyone drained his mug's contents, and 
Sir Walter was happy in the conscious- 
ness of having given something to civil- 
ized man second only to food. 

If the conversation of those master 
minds that night could have been pre- 
served, few books that we know would 
equal in wisdom, wit, humor, and bril- 
liancy, a volume made of it. But, alas ! 
there was no Boswell there, with his note- 
book, his prying eyes and eager ears, and 
that night has passed into the great sea of 
oblivion, like the snow that fell, the winds 
that blew, the flowers that budded, blos- 
somed, faded, withered, and died, three 
thousand years ago — or thirty. 

Something about Sir Walter Raleigh 



lO SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 

should here be told, not for the first time, 
— nothing nowadays is ever told for the 
first time, — but in our own way. A few 
pages will epitomize the life of this bold, 
handsome, gallant, honest and honorable, 
tender and loyal, simple and courage- 
ous, sixteenth-century gentleman. None 
braver ever lived, loved, sang, suffered, 
and died, the best he knew how, than this 
jewel of a man. No more romantic life 
has been chronicled than his. 

He was born in the same year with 
Edmund Spenser, 1552 ; and twelve years 
before Kit Marlowe and the glorious 
Shakespeare, both of whom came into the 
world in 1564. In all the annals of liter- 
ature, or in all the illimitable worlds of 
illimitable space, in all the Olimitable ages, 
was there ever, or will there ever be such 
a quartette gathered under one roof, in 
one room (the Mermaid's) as that one 
composed of Raleigh, Spenser, Marlowe, 
and Shakespeare. 

It was at the Hayes Farm, in Devon- 



SIR WALTER RALEIGH. II 

shire, that Raleigh first saw the h'ght of 
day. He grew up in the country, from 
babyhood to his teens, and into them, as 
other boys do. He loved outdoors, play, 
study. He was as adventurous as Clive 
who, later on, gave England India ; but 
unlike Clive, he had his poetic days and 
nights. Clive was all adventure, bold- 
ness, recklessness, and business ; Raleigh 
was all these — except the latter. More- 
over, he was a student and a lover of 
poetry. 

Raleigh was educated at Oxford, and> 
at the age of seventeen, when most Eng- 
lish boys are going home for the holidays, 
roast goose and apple sauce, plum pud- 
ding and alf-an'-'alf, he began his me- 
teor-like career, as a volunteer in the 
cause of the French Protestants. For 
more than five years he fought in the 
Continental wars, and at the age of 
twenty-four he joined his half-brother, 
Sir Humphrey Gilbert, in a voyage to 
North America. In 1578, two years 



12 SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 

later, at the age of twenty-six, he re- 
turned to England, with a lot of — Ex- 
perience. He couldn't make much of a 
splurge on that, so we find him, as Cap- 
tain Raleigh, a little later on, in Ireland, 
fighting like a bulldog against the rebel 
Desmonds. He fought so well that he was 
chosen to bear dispatches from the Lord 
Lieutenant of Ireland to Auburn Lizzie. 

Fortune's wheel swung round, until 
Raleigh stood on top of it the day he 
met Elizabeth. She could make or 
break any man in England in those days. 
Raleigh's star was in her happiest 
mood that day when she sent her gallant 
protege up a certain thoroughfare, down 
which the bejeweled queen was coming, 
for as Lizzie paused at a particularly 
muddy place with a shudder of disgust, 
young Captain Raleigh whipped off his 
cloak and flung it beneath her virgin feet. 
She repaid him with a smile, and from 
that moment Captain Raleigh was in the 
saddle. 



SIR WALTER RALEIGH. I3 

In less than no time he was a knight. 
Captain of the Queen's Guard, and Sen- 
eschal of Cornwall ; besides receiving a 
grant of twelve thousand acres of land in 
Ireland, and the sole right of licensing 
wine-sellers in England. 

Elizabeth knew how to reward those 
in whom she took a platonic interest. 
She gave them something besides shawls, 
portraits of her effulgent self, and grand- 
motherly advice. There was no squatty 
royalty about Elizabeth of England. 
Nothing was too good for those who 
served the state ; nothing too severe for 
the state's enemies. 

Raleigh now had all kinds of money : 
money to burn, to throw away, to treat, 
spend, and loan. He had a lot of 
stranded friends among the poets and 
dramatists of that day, and he helped 
them all out of his large purse and larger 
nature. 

Then he lost more than half his fortune 
in an attempt to colonize North America. 



14 SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 

Twice he sent out expeditions to 
America, but the ancestors of King 
Philip and Massasoit would not allow 
him to do it. The first settlers escaped 
in their nightcaps and slippers, and 
boarded Francis Drake's ships ; but the 
second band were tomahawked and 
scalped. The first expedition brought to 
England tobacco, and the succulent and 
necessary Murphy. Raleigh called a 
State Virginia, after his Virgin Queen, 
and the capital of North Carolina is 
known to this day as Raleigh. 

In the splendid fight of English sea- 
men against the Armada of Spain — a 
fleet Philip sent out to wipe England 
off the map — Raleigh was a leader. 
Such men as Francis Drake, John Haw- 
kins, and Frobisher were his companions 
in that never-to-be-forgotten Homeric 
sea conflict. Then Raleigh became the 
owner of the magnificent acres of Sher- 
borne, in Dorsetshire ; then the disgraced 
husband of Elizabeth Throgmorton ; the 



SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 1 5 

daring explorer of the Orinoco ; the hero 
of the siege of Cadiz and the capture of 
Fayal ; and then Elizabeth died, and 
James the First, with his big head, slob- 
bering mouth, codfish eyes, spindle 
shanks, his want of dignity, his drunk- 
enness, his affectation of learning, and his 
rank cowardice, came to the throne. 
He had hardly filled the chair left vacant 
by Elizabeth before Raleigh's star began 
to sputter like a midnight candle, and 
Cecil, his former chum, began to poison 
the king's mind against him. Cecil did 
his backcapping work so thoroughly, in 
1603, when Raleigh was fifty-one years 
of age, that James had the former 
favorite stripped of nearly all his honors 
and rewards. 

The world is always full of Cecils, 
Jameses, and (comparative) Raleighs. 

Every man who reads this, knows 
that. 

But worse followed, thanks to the 
reptile Cecil : Raleigh was charged with 



1 6 SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 

having been at the head of a plot to 
kidnap James and place Lady Arabella 
Stuart on the throne. He was tried for 
treason, in Winchester Castle. He was 
sent to the Tower, and for thirteen years 
kept there. During those thirteen years, 
his friend, William Shakespeare, was be- 
coming the Miracle of Time — the greatest 
man ever cast by the tides of Time on 
the shores of Life. What a world of 
pities that for those thirteen golden years 
to Shakespeare, Raleigh never saw one of 
the great plays of England's King of 
Kings, and that, in 1616, the year Ra- 
leigh was released from the Tower to 
find gold in America for James the First, 
Shakespeare should die ! Well, two years 
later, Raleigh followed him. But Shake- 
speare died in bed. 

While in the Tower, Raleigh wrote his 
" History of the World " ; and there he 
spent much of his time in chemical ex- 
periments, in the course of which he 
sought eagerly for the philosopher's 



SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 1 7 

stone, and the elixir of life. But he 
found them not. They are still with 
Keely's motor, in the womb of Time. 

In 1616, James the First sent Raleigh 
with fourteen ships to the Orinoco after 
the tons of gold he thought were there. 
All Raleigh found was a bar or two of 
gold, captured from a Spanish settlement 
on the Orinoco River. His son Walter 
was killed in the assault upon the settle- 
ment, and, ** with my brains broken," he 
wrote his wife, he was forced to sail for 
home from the grave of his son. 

It would be of historic interest to have 
the grave of young Walter Raleigh lo- 
cated, by the way. Like Ophelia's body, 
the body of a Raleigh should enrich the 
soil that has received it. 

The Spaniards were wild with rage at 
Raleigh's acts, and Spain went yelling, 
into James's audience chamber, " Pirates ! 
Pirates ! " 

Spain demanded reparation. James 
desired to please Spain, as he wished to 



1 8 SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 

marry his son Charles to the Infanta. 
So he had Raleigh arrested on his return 
to England, and on October 19, 161 8, at 
the age of sixty-six, he was beheaded, at 
Westminster, upon the fifteen-year-old 
charge of " treason." Because a " king " 
had committed it, it wasn't called " mur- 
der"; but when Cromwell cut off the 
head of Charles the First— Horrors ! — 
that was " murder " — to kill a worthless 
** king " ; but that was ** execution " to 
kill a fine gentleman like Raleigh, who 
was worth fifty thousand kings by divine 
rot. 

No man could die more splendidly 
than did Raleigh. He smilingly picked 
up the axe on his way to the block and, 
running his finger over the edge of it, 
said : 

" This is a sharp medicine, but it will 
cure all disease." Two blows, and a 
master of the sword, the compass, and 
the pen was without a head. 

What a pity, that he couldn't have had 



SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 



19 



a box of perfectos the night before he 
left the world ! Well, maybe James the 
First, his murderer, is compelled to 
smoke ** two for five " where he is. 




20 THE DISCOVERY OF TOBACCO. 

THE DISCOVERY OF TOBACCO. 

A Sailor'' s Version. 

They were three jolly sailors bold, 

Who sailed across the sea ; 
They'd braved the storm, and stood the gale, 

And got to Virgin-ee. 

'Twas in the days of good Queen Bess,— 

Or p'raps a bit before,— 
And now these here three sailors bold 

Went cruising on the shore. 
A lurch to starboard, one to port, 

Now forrard, boys, go we, 
With a haul and a '* Ho ! " and a "That's your 
sort ! " 

To find out Tobac-kee. 

Says Jack, " This here's a rummy land." 

Says Tom, *' Well, shiver me ! 
The sun shines out as precious hot 

As ever I did see." 
Says Dick, " Messmates, since here we be " — 

And gave his eye a wink — 
*' We've come to find out Tobac-kee, 

Which means a drop to drink." 

Says Jack, says he, *'The Injins think " 

Says Tom, "I'l! swear as they 
Don't think at all. " Says Dick, " You're right ; 

It aint their nat'ral way. 



THE DISCOVERY OF TOBACCO. 21 

But I want to find out, my lads, 

This stuff of which they tell ; 
For if, as it aint meant to drink, 

Why, it must be meant to smell." 

Says Tom, says he, " To drink or smell, 

I don't think this here's meant." 
Says Jack, says he, " Blame my old eyes. 

If I'll believe it's scent." 
" Well, then," says Dick, " if that aint square, 

It must be meant for meat ; 
So come along, my jovial mates, 

To find what's good to eat." 

They came across a great big plant, 

A-growing tall and true. 
Says Jack, says he, ''I'm precious dry," 

And picked a leaf to chew. 
While Tom takes up a sun-dried bit, 

A-lying by the trees ; 
He rubs it in his hands to dust 

And then begins to sneeze. 

Another leaf picks nimble Dick, 

And dries it in the sun, 
And rolls it up all neat and tight. 

"My lads," said he in fun, 
*'I mean to cook this precious weed." 

And then from out his poke 
With burning-glass he lights the end, 

And quick blows up the smoke. 

Says Jack, says he, " Of Paradise 
I've heerd some people tell," 



22 



THE DISCOVERY OF TOBACCO. 



Says Tom, says he, " This here will do ; 

Let's have another smell." 
Says Dick, his face all pleasant smiles, 

A-looking through a cloud, 
*' It strikes rae here's the Cap'n bold. 

And now we'll all be rowed." 

Up comes brave Hawkins on the beach ; 

" Shiver my hull ! " he cries, 
" What's these here games, my merry men ? " 

And then, " Why, blame my eyes 1 
Here's one as chaws, and one as snuffs, 

And t'other of the three 
Is smoking like a chimbley-pot — 

They've found out Tobac-kee ! " 

So if ever you should hear 

Of Raleigh and them lies 
About his sarvant and his pipe 

And him as " Fire ! " cries. 
You say as 'twas three sailors bold 

As sailed to Virgin-ee 
In brave old Hawkins' gallant ship 

Who found out Tobac-kee. 

—Cigar and Tobacco Worlds London, 




A FEW WORDS ABOUT TOBACCO. 23 

A FEW WORDS ABOUT 
TOBACCO. 

Although Jean Nicot, a French am- 
bassador to Portugal, is credited with 
the greatest service in giving tobacco its 
official recognition, it was really first 
introduced into Europe in 1558 by Fran- 
cisco Fernandes, a physician who had 
been sent by Philip II. of Spain to inves- 
tigate the products of Mexico. 

Nicot, however, on his return to 
France in about 1560, carried it to 
Catherine de Medici, the Queen ; and the 
reception it met with from her and other 
titled personages gave it reputation and 
popularity. 

From Nicot and the Queen were derived 
the titles, " Queen's Heat " {Nzcotzana)^ 
and subsequently to one of its prepa- 
rations, *' The Powder of the Queen.'* 

Lofty example and the sanction of high 
life gave currency to any custom ; hence 
tobacco became generally used. 



24 THE ORIGIN OF TOBACCO. 

The French give Sir Francis Drake 
the credit of carrying it to England, and 
there is no doubt but what Sir Walter 
and Sir Francis succeeded in making 
tobacco a fashionable luxury. From 
there it spread. Every lover of the plant 
can easily imagine the rest. 



THE ORIGIN OF TOBACCO. 

The Prophet v^as taking a stroll in the 
country w^hen he saw a serpent, stiff with 
cold, lying on the ground. He compas- 
sionately took it up and v^armed it in 
his bosom. When the serpent had re- 
covered, it said : 

*' Divine Prophet, listen. I am now 
going to bite thee." 

** Why, pray ? " inquired Mahomet. 

*' Because thy race persecutest mine 
and tries to stamp it out." 

** But does not thy race, too, make 
perpetual war against mine ? " was the 
Prophet's rejoinder. ''How canst thou, 



THE ORIGIN OF TOBACCO. 2$ 

besides, be so ungrateful, and so soon 
forget that I saved thy life? " 

" There is no such thing as gratitude 
upon this earth," replied the serpent, 
" and if I were now to spare thee, either 
thou or another of thy race would kill 
me. By Allah, I shall bite thee ! " 

'* If thou hast sworn by Allah, I will 
not cause thee to break thy vow," s:aid 
the Prophet, holding his hand to the 
serpent's mouth. The serpent bit him, 
but he sucked the wound with his lips 
and spat the venom on the ground. And 
on that very spot there sprung up a plant 
which combines within itself the venom 
of the serpent and the compassion of the 
Prophet. Men call this plant by the 
name of tobacco. — Conte Arabe, 



CLOUDS. 

Mortals say their hearts are light 
When the clouds around disperse ; 

Clouds to gather thick as night, 
Is the smoker's universe. 
—From the German of Bauernfeld, 



26 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF SMOKING. 




THE SMOKING PHILOSOPHER. 

His whole amusement was his 
^ pipe ; and, as there is a certain in- 
definable link between smoking and 
philosophy, my father, by dint of 
smoking, had become a philoso- 
pher. It is no less strange than true that 
we can puff away our cares with tobacco, 
when without it they remain an oppres- 
sive burthen to existence. There is 
no composing draught like the draught 
through the tube of a pipe. The savage 
warriors of North America enjoyed the 
blessing before we did ; and to the pipe 
is to be ascribed the wisdom of their 
councils, and the laconic delivery of their 
sentiments. It would be well introduced 
into our own legislative assembly. Ladies, 
indeed, would no longer peep down 
through the ventilator ; but we should 
have more sense and fewer words. It is 
also to tobacco that is to be ascribed 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF SMOKING. 27 

the stoical firmness of those American 
warriors who, satisfied with the pipe in 
their mouths, submitted with perfect in- 
difference to the torture of their enemies. 
From the virtues of this weed arose that 
pecuHar expression when you irritate an- 
other, that you ** put his pipe out." 

— Marryafs ''Jacob Faithful^ 



WITH PIPE AND BOOK. 

With Pipe and Book at close of day, 
Oh, what is sweeter, mortal, say ? 
It matters not what book on knee, 
Old Izaak or the Odyssey, 
It matters not meerschaum or clay. 

And though one's eyes will dream astray, 
And lips forget to sue or sway, 
It is " enough to merely be '* 
With Pipe and Book. 

What though our modern skies be gray, 
As bards aver, I will not pray 
For " soothing Death " to succor me, 
But ask this much, O Fate, of thee, 
A little longer yet to stay 
With Pipe and Book. 

—Richard Le Gallienne. 



28 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SMOKING. 



CARLYLE ON TOBACCO. 

"Tobacco smoke," says Carlyle, "is 
the one element in which, by our Euro- 
pean manners, men can sit silent together 
without embarrassment, and where no 
man is bound to speak one word more 
than he has actually and veritably got to 
say. Nay, rather every man is admon- 
ished and enjoined by the laws of honor, 
and even of personal ease, to stop short 
of that point ; and at all events to hold 
his peace and take to his pipe again the 
instant he has spoken his meaning, if he 
chance to have any. The results of which 
salutary practice, if introduced into con- 
stitutional parliaments, might evidently 
be incalcukble. The essence of what 
little intellect and insight there is in that 
room — we shall or can get nothing more 
out of any parliament ; and sedative, 
gently soothing, gently clarifying, tobacco 
smoke (if the room were well ventilated, 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF SMOKING. 29 

open atop, and the air kept good), with 
the obligation to a minhnum of speech, 
surely gives human intellect and insight 
the best chance they can have." 



IN FAVOR OF TOBACCO. 

Much victuals serves for gluttony 
To fatten men like swine ; 
But he's a frugal man indeed 
That with a leaf can dine, 
And needs no napkin for his hands, 
His fingers' ends to wipe, 
But keeps his kitchen in a box, 
And roast meat in a pipe. 
—Samuel Rowlands. 

Knave of Clubs (161 1). 



A PIPE OF TOBACCO. 

Little tube of mighty power, 
Charmer of an idle hour. 
Object of my warm desire. 
Lip of wax, and eye of fire : 
And thy snowy taper waist. 
With my finger gently braced ; 
And thy pretty swelling crest, 
With my little stopper press'd. 
And the sweetest bliss of blisses. 
Breathing from thy balmy kisses. 



30 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SMOKING. 

Happy thrice, and thrice agen, 
Happiest he of happy men, 
Who when agen the night returns, 
When agen the taper burns ; 
When agen the cricket's gay 
(Little cricket full of play). 
Can afford his tube to feed 
With the fragrant Indian weed ; 
Pleasure for a nose divine. 
Incense of the god of wine. 
Happy thrice, and thrice agen 
Happiest he of happy men. 

—Isaac Hawkins Browne (1736). 



BULWER-LYTTON ON 
TOBACCO SMOKING. 

He who doth not smoke hath either 
known no great griefs, or refuseth himself 
the softest consolation, next to that which 
comes from heaven. *' What softer than 
a woman ? " whispers the young reader. 

Young reader, woman teases as well as 
consoles. Woman makes half the sorrows 
which she boasts the privilege to soothe. 

Woman consoles us, it is true, while 
we are young and handsome; when we 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF SMOKING. 3I 

are old and ugly, woman snubs and 
scolds us. 

On the whole, then, woman in this 
scale, the weed in that. Jupiter ! hang 
out thy balance, and weigh them both ; 
and if thou give the preference to woman, 
all I can say is, the next time Juno ruffles 
thee, O Jupiter ! try the weed. — '* What 
Will He Do with It? " 



INVOCATION TO TOBACCO. 

Weed of the strange flower, weed of the earth, 

Killer of dullness, parent of mirth. 

Come in the sad hour, come in the gay, 

Appear in the night, or in the day, — 

Still thou art welcome as June's blooming rose, 

Joy of the palate, delight of the nose ! 

Weed of the green field, weed of the wild, 
Fostered in freedom, America's child, 
Come in Virginia, come in Havana ; 
Friend of the universe, sweeter than manna — 
Still thou art welcome, rich, fragrant, and ripe, 
Pride of the tube-case, delight of the pipe ! 

Weed of the savage, weed of each pole, 
Comforting, soothing philosophy's soul, 



32 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SMOKING. 

Come in the snuff-box, come in cigar, 
In Strasburgh and Kings', come from afar, — 
Still thou art welcome, the purest, the best, 
Joy of earth's millions, forever caresst ! 

—Henry James Mellen. 



THE HAPPY SMOKER. 

When I am "■ broke," I take a smoke- 
Comfort is my aim- 
Likewise when ''flush" — or maybe "lush," 

I gently nurse the flame. 
The wreaths of smoke that round me roll. 
From " Garcia " or from carven bowl, 
Drive care away 
And make the day — 
If dark, all bright ; if bright, then more 
Of joy is added to my store. 
And so I puff, morn, noon, and night. 
The gods be thanked for this sweet "light." 

— E. BONFILS. 



SAM SLICK ON THE VIRTUES 
OF A PIPE. 

" The fact is, squire, the moment a 
man takes to a pipe, he becomes a phi- 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF SMOKING. 33 

losopher. It's the poor man's friend ; it 
calms the mind, soothes the temper, and 
makes a man patient under difficulties. 
It has made more good men, good hus- 
bands, kind masters, indulgent fathers, 
than any other blessed thing on this 
universal earth." 

— " Sam Slicky the ClockmakerJ' 



OPINION OF ST. PIERRE ON 
THE EFFECT OF TOBACCO. 

The author of " Paul and Virginia " 
remarks : '* It is true that tobacco in some 
measure augments our power of judg- 
ment by exciting the nerves of the brain. 
This plant is, however, a veritable poison, 
and in the long run affects the sense of 
smell and sometimes the nerves of the 
eye. But man is always ready to impair 
his physical constitution provided he can 
strengthen his 'intellectual sentiment' 
thereby." 



34 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SMOKING. 



SMOKE DREAMS. 

Tobacco smoke ! Blue-gray in wreaths, — 

Blue laurel-wreaths which float in air, 
As if, invisible, serene, 

A dreaming" angel hovered there. 
A spirit of calm kindliness,— 

A touch of eyes that smile through tears,- 
A mantle of forgetfulness, 

Thrown on the passions of the years. 

I cross my knees, 1 puff my pipe. 

The gentle Summer warmth creeps in ; 
The Summer warmth 'mid Winter's snows,- 

For indolence shall banish sin, — 
And watch the tasseled smoke-drops fall. 

And note the fringed smoke-plumes rise, 
And see the dreams, in legions, turn 

To smoky nothings in the skies. 

Tobacco smoke, like silken web. 

Suspended in the restful airs, 
To me and mine, in soothing rhymes 

A dainty, artless burden bears ; 
Let cares rage on — let hopes renew — 

The Yesterday, To-morrow be — 
But we are wise, the smoke and I ; 

We cease regrets and troubles flee. 

—A. B. Tucker. 



THE PH'ILOSOPHY OF SMOKING. 



35 



GUIZOT. 

A LADY, one evening, calling on Guizot, 
the historian of France, found him ab- 
sorbed in his pipe. In astonishment she 
exclaimed : " What ! you smoke and yet 
have arrived at so great an age ! " *' Ah, 
madam," replied the venerable states- 
man, "if I had not smoked I should have 
been dead ten years ago." 



MY PIPE. 

When love grows cool, thy fire still warms me ; 
When friends are fled, thy presence charms me. 
If thou art full, though purse be bare, 
I smoke and cast away all care ! 

—German Smoking Song. 




36 



POETRY OF SMOKE. 




LATAKIA. 

When all the panes are hung with frost, 

Wild wizard-work of silver lace» 
I draw my sofa on the rug, 
,. Before the ancient chimney-place. 
Upon the painted tiles are mosques 
And minarets, and here and there 
A blind muezzin lifts his hands. 

And calls the faithful unto prayer. 
Folded in idle, twilight dreams, 
I hear the hemlock chirp and sing, 
As if within its ruddy core 

It held the happy heart of spring. 
Ferdousi never sang like that, 

Nor Saadi grave, nor Hafiz gay ; 
I lounge, and blow white rings of smoke, 
And watch them rise and float away. 



The curling wreaths like turbans seem 

Of silent slaves that come and go — 
Or Viziers, packed with craft and crime, 
Whom I behead from time to time, 

With pipe-stem, at a single blow. 
And now and then a lingering cloud 

Takes gracious form at my desire. 
And at my side my lady stands, 
Unwinds her veil with snowy hands — 

A shadowy shape, a breath of fire ! 
Oh, Love ! if you were only here. 

Beside me in this mellow light, 



POETRY OF SMOKE. 37 

Though all the bitter winds should blow, 
And all the ways be choked with snow .• 
'Twould be a true Arabian night ! 

— T. B. Aldrich. 



SUBLIME TOBACCO. 

Sublime tobacco ! which, from east to west, 
Cheers the tar's labor or the Turkman's rest ; 
Which on the Moslem's ottoman divides 
His hours, and rivals opium and his brides ; 
Magnificent in Stamboul, but less grand, 
Though not less loved, in Wapping on the 

Strand ; 
Divine in hookas, glorious in a pipe, 
"When tipp'd with amber, mellow, rich, and 

ripe; 
Like other charmers, wooing the caress 
More dazzlingly when daring in full dress; 
Yet thy true lovers more admire, by far, 
Thy naked beauties— give me a cigar ! 
—Lord Byron, 
The Island^ Canto iiy Stanza iq. 



38 POETRY OF SMOKE. 



VIRGINIA TOBACCO. 

Two maiden dames of sixty-two 

Together long had dwelt ; 
Neither, alas ! of love so true 

The bitter pang had felt. 

But age comes on, they say, apace, 

To warn us of our death. 
And wrinkles mar the fairest face,— 

At last it stops our breath. 

One of these dames, tormented sore 
With that curst pang, toothache, 

Was at a loss for such a bore 
What remedy to take. 

"I've heard," thought she, "this ill to cure, 

A pipe is good, they say. 
Well, then, tobacco I'll endure, 

And smoke the pain away." 

The pipe was lit, the tooth soon well, 

And she retired to rest, 
When then the other ancient belle 

Her spinster maid addressed,— 

" Let me request a favor, pray "— 

" I'll do it if I can "— 
" Oh ! well, then, love, smoke every day. 

You smell so like a inan / " 

—John Stanley Gregson. 



POETRY OF SMOKE. 39 



A GOOD CIGAR. 

Oh, 'tis well enough 
A whiff or a puft" 

From the heart of a pipe to get ; 
And a dainty maid 
Or a budding blade 

May toy with the cigarette ; 
But a man, when the time 
Of a glorious prime 

Dawns forth like a morning star, 
Wants the dark-brown bloom 
And the sweet perfume 

That go with a good cigar. 

To lazily float 
In a painted boat 

On a shimmering morning sea, 
Or to flirt with a maid, 
In the afternoon shade, 

Seems good enough sport to be ; 
But the evening hour, 
With its subtle power, 

Is sweeter and better far, 
If joined to the joy, 
Devoid of alloy, 

That lurks in a good cigar. 

When a blanket wet 
Is solidly set 
O'er hopes prematurely grown ; 



40 POETRY OF SMOKE. 

When ambition is tame, 
And energy lame, 

And the bloom from the fruit is blown ; 
When to dance and to dine, 
With women and wine. 

Past poverty pleasures are,— 
A man's not bereft 
Of all peace, if there's left 

The joy of a good cigar. 

— NoRRis Bull. 



A POET'S PIPE. 

From the French of Charles Baudelaire. 

A Poet's pipe am I, 

And my Abyssinian tint 
Is an unmistakable hint 
That he lays me not often by. 
When his soul is with grief o'erworn, 
I smoke like the cottage where 
They are cooking the evening fare 
For the laborer's return. . 

I enfold and cradle his soul 
In the vapors moving and blue 
That mount from my fiery mouth ; 
And there is power in my bowl 
To charm his spirit and soothe. 
And heal his weariness too. 

—Richard Herne Shepherd. 



POETRY OF SMOKE. 4I 

THE HAPPY SMOKING 
GROUND. 

When that last pipe is smoked at last 

And pouch and pipe put by, 
And smoked and smoker both alike 

In dust and ashes lie, 
What of the smoker ? Whither passed ? 

Ah, will he smoke no more ? 
And will there be no golden cloud 

Upon the golden shore ? 
Ah ! who shall say we cry in vain 

To fate upon his hill. 
For, howsoe'er we ask and ask, 

He goes on smoking still. 
But, surely, 'twere a bitter thing 

If other men pursue 
Their various earthly joys again 

Beyond that distant blue, 
If the poor smoker might not ply 

His peaceful passion too. 
If Indian braves may still up there 

On merry scalpings go. 
And buried Britons rise again 

With arrow and with bow, 
May not the smoker hope to take 

His " cutty " from below ? 
So let us trust ! and when at length 

You lay me 'neath the yew, 
Forget not, O my friends, I pray. 

Pipes and tobacco too ! 

—Richard Le Gallienne. 



42 POETRY OF SMOKE. 



A FAREWELL TO TOBACCO. 

May the Babylonish curse 

Straight confound my stammering verse 

If I can a passage see 

In this word-perplexity, 

Or a fit expression find, 

Or a language to my mind 

(Still the phrase is wide or scant) 

To take leave of thee. Great Plant ! 

Or in any terms relate 

Half my love or half my hate : 

For I hate yet love thee so. 

That, whichever things I show, 

The plain truth will seem to be 

A constrain'd hyperbole. 

And the passion to proceed 

More from a mistress than a weed. 



Sooty retainer to the vine 

Bacchus' black servant, negro-fine ; 

Sorcerer, thou makest us dote upon 

Thy begrimed complexion, 

And for thy pernicious sake, 

More and greater oaths to break 

Than reclaimed lovers take 

'Gainst women ; thou thy siege dost lay 

Much too in the female v/ay. 

While thou suck'st the laboring breath 

Faster than kisses or than death. 



POETRY OF SMOKE. 43 

Thou in such a cloud dost bind us 
That our worst foes cannot find us, 
And ill fortune, that would thwart us, 
Shoots at rovers, shooting at us ; 
While each man, through thy heightening 

steam 
Does like a smoking Etna seem, 
And all about us does express 
(Fancy and wit in richest dress) 
A Sicilian fruitfulness. 

Thou through such a mist dost show us 
That our best friends do not know us. 
And for those allowed features, 
Due to reasonable creatures, 
Liken'st us to fell Chimeras- 
Monsters that, who see us, fear us ; 
Worse than Cerberus or Geryon 
Or, who first loved a cloud, Ixion. 

Bacchus we know, and we allow 
His tipsy rites. But what art thou, 
That but by reflex canst show 
What his deity can do, 
As the false Egyptian spell 
Aped the true Hebrew miracle. 
Some few vapors thou may'st raise. 
The weak brain may serve to amaze, 
But to the reins and nobler heart 
Canst not life nor heat impart. 

Brother of Bacchus, later born. 
The old world was sure forlorn 



44 POETRY OF SMOKE. 

Wanting thee ; thou aidest more 
The god's victories than before 
All his panthers and the brawls 
Of his piping Bacchanals. 
These as stale, we disallow, 
Or judge of thee meant : only thou 
His true Indian conquest art ; 
And, for ivy round his dart, 
The reformed god now weaves 
A finer thyrsus .of thy leaves. 

Scent to match thy rich perfume 
Through his quaint alembic strain, 
None so sovereign to the brain. 
Nature that did in thee excel, 
Framed again no second smell. 
Roses, violets but toys 
For the smaller sort of boys, 
Or for greener damsels meant ; 
Thou art the only manly scent. 

Stinking'st of the stinking kind. 
Filth of the mouth and fogs of the mind ; 
Africa, that brags her foison, 
Breeds no such prodigious poison, 
Henbane, nightshade, both together, 
Hemlock, aconite — 

Nay, rather, 
Plant divine, of rarest virtue ; 
Blisters on the tongue would hurt you. 
*Twas but in a sort I blamed thee. 
None e'er prosper'd who defamed thee : 
Irony all and feign'd abuse, 
Such as perplexed lovers use 



POETRY OF SMOKE. 45 

At a need when, in despair, 
To paint forth their fairest fair, 
Or in part but to express 
That exceeding comeliness 
Which their fancies doth so strike, 
They borrow language of dislike, 
And, instead of Dearest Miss, 
Jewel, Honey, Sweetheart, Bliss, 
Call her Cockatrice and Siren, 
Basilisk, and all that's evil, 
Witch, Hyena, Mermaid, Devil, 
Ethiop, Wench, and Blackamoor, 
Monkey, Ape, and twenty more : 
Friendly Traitress, Loving Foe— 
Not that she is truly so, 
But no other way they know 
A contentment to express. 
Borders so upon excess. 
That they do not rightly wot 
Whether it be pain or not. 

Or as men, constrain'd to part 
With what's nearest to their heart, 
While their sorrow's at the height, 
Lose discrimination quite. 
And their hasty wrath let fall 
To appease their frantic gall. 
On the darling thing whatever 
Whence they feel it death to sever, 
Though it be, as they, perforce. 
Guiltless of the sad divorce. 
For I must (nor let it grieve thee. 
Friendliest of plants, that I must) leave 
thee. 



46 POETRY OF SMOKE. 

For thy sake, Tobacco, I 
Would do anything but die, 
And but seek to extend my days 
Long enough to sing thy praise. 

But as she who once hath been 

A king's consort is a queen 

Ever after, nor will bate 

Any tittle of her state 

Though a widow, or divorced, 

So I from my converse forced. 

The old name and style retain, 

A right Katherine of Spain ; 

And a seat, too, 'mongst the joys 

Of the blest Tobacco Boys ; 

Where, though I, by sour physician, 

Am debarr'd the full fruition 

Of thy favors, I may catch 

Some collateral sweets, and snatch 

Sidelong odors, that give life 

Like glances from a neighbor's wife ; 

And still live in the by-places 

And the suburbs of thy graces , 

And in thy borders take delight 

An unconquer'd Canaanite. 

—Charles Lamb. 



INSCRIPTION FOR A TOBACCO 
JAR. 

Keep me at hand ; and as my fumes arise, 
You'll find a/a:r the gates of Paradise. 

—Cope's Tobacco Plant. 



POETRY OF SMOKE. 47 

THE SCENT OF A GOOD 
CIGAR. 

What is it comes through the deepening 
dusk, — 
Something sweeter than jasmine scent, 
Sweeter than rose and violet blent, 
More potent in power than orange or musk ? 
The scent of a good cigar. 



I am all alone in my quiet room, 
And the windows are open wide and free 
To let in the south wind's kiss for me, 

While I rock in the softly gathering gloom, 
And that subtle fragrance steals. 



Just as a loving, tender hand 
Will sometimes steal in yours, 
It softly comes through the open doors, 

And memory wakes at its command, — 
The scent of that good cigar. 



And what does it say ? Ah ! that's for me 
And my heart alone to know ; 
But that heart thrills with a sudden glow, 
Tears fill my eyes till I cannot see, — 

From the scent of that good cigar. 

— Kate A. Carrington. 



48 POETRY OF SMOKE. 

IN THE OL' TOBACKER 
PATCH. 

I JESS kind o' feel so lonesome that I don't know 
what to do, 
When I think about them days we used to 
spend 
A-hoein' our tobacker in th' clearin'— me an* 
you— 
An' a-wishin' that the day was at an end. 
For the dewdrops was a-sparklin' on the 
beeches' tender leaves 
As we started out a-workin* in the morn ; 
An' th' noonday sun was sendin' down a shower 
of burnin' leaves 
When we heard the welcome-soundin' dinner- 
horn. 
An' th' shadders round us gathered in a sort of 

ghostly batch, 
'Fore we started home from workin' in that 
ol' tobacker patch. 



I'm a-feelin' mighty lonesome, as I look aroun' 
to-day. 
For I see th' change that's taken place since 
then. 
All th' hills is brown and faded, for th' woods 
is cleared away. 
You an' me has changed from ragged boys 
to men ; 



POETRY OF SMOKE. 49 

You are livin' in th' city that we ust to dream 

about ; 
I am still a-dwellin' here upon the place, 
But my form is bent an' feeble, which was once 

so straight and stout. 
An' there's most a thousand wrinkles on my 

face. 
You have made a mint of money ; I perhaps 

have been your match, 
But we both enjoyed life better in that ol' 



tobacker patch. 



— S. Q. Lapius. 



MOTTO FOR A TOBACCO JAR. 

Come ! don't refuse sweet Nicotina's aid. 
But woo the goddess through a yard of clay ; 
And soon you'll own she is the fairest maid 
To stifle pain, and drive old Care away. 
Nor deem it waste, what though to ash she 

burns. 
If for your outlay you get good returns I 



A STUB OF CIGAR. 

You ask what it means, and a look of scorn 
Mars your fair face, dear Lady Disdain ; 

But to me it recalls a bright summer morn 
When cherries were red down a long country 
lane ! 



50 POETRY OF SMOKE. 

I close my eyes, and a rustle of wheat 
Comes borne on a breeze whose breath is a 
balm ; 
A breeze heavy with sweet clover-bloom at my 
feet, 
Which brings to my spirit an infinite calm. 



And once more I see, though my eyes are 
closed fast, 
A face kindly tender, and manly, and true— 
A friendship once vowed that was given to 
last, 
And eyes that reflected the heaven's own 
blue. 



As two sailing ships in mid-ocean meet, 
Salute, and pass on to far distant lands, 

We met, to find only friendship was sweet, 
When we were compelled to clasp parting 
hands. 



And the voice of that comrade who strolled by 
my side 
Comes again to my ear, thro' days vanished 
afai", 
And that's why I cherish it, almost with pride, 
This poor, little, wasted, sad stub of cigar ! 
— VOLNEY Streamer 
July 2, 1889. 



POETRY OF SMOKE. $1 

THE PIPE YOU MAKE YOUR- 
SELF. 

There's clay pipes an' briar pipes and meer- 
schaum pipes as well ; 

There's plain pipes an' fancy pipes— things jest 
made to sell ; 

But any pipe that can be bought fer marbles, 
chalk, or pelf, 

Aint ekal to the flaver of the pipe you make 
yourself. 



Jest take a common corn cob an' whittle out 

the middle, 
Then plug up one end of it as tight as any 

fiddle ; 
Fit a stem into th' side an' lay her on th' shelf, 
An' when she's dry you take her down— that 

pipe you made yourself. 



Cram her full clar to th' brim with nachral 

leaf, you bet— 
'Twill smoke a trifle better for bein' somewhat 

wet— 
Take your worms and fishin' pole, and a jug 

along for health ; 
An' you'll get a taste o' heaven from that pipe 

you made you^^self. 

—Henry E. Brown. 



52 POETRY OF SMOKE. 



SMOKING AWAY. 

Floating away like the fountain's spray, 
Or the snow-white plume of a maiden, 

The smoke-wreaths rise to the starlit skies 
With blissful fragrance laden. 

Ckorus.— Then smoke away till a golden ray 
Lights up the dawn of the morrow, 
For a cheerful cigar, like a shield, will 
bar, 
The blows of care and sorrow. 

The leaf burns bright like the gems of night 
That flash in the braids of Beauty ; 

It nerves each heart for the hero's part 
On the battle plain of duty. 

In the thoughtful gloom of his darkened room, 

Sits the child of song and story, 
But his heart is light, for his pipe burns bright, 

And his dreams are all of glory. 

By the blazing fire sits the gray-haired sire. 

And infant arms surround him ; 
And he smiles on all in that quaint old hall, 

While the smoke-curls float around him. 

In the forest grand of our native land. 

When the savage conflict ended. 
The " Pipe of Peace " brought a sweet release 

From toil and terror blended. 



POETRY OF SMOKE. 53 

The dark-eyed train of the maids of Spain, 
Neath their arbor shades trip lightly, 

And a gleaming cigar, like a newborn star, 
In the clasp of their lips burns brightly. 

It warms the soul, like the blushing bowl, 
With its rose-red burden streaming, 

And drowns it in bliss, like the first warm kiss. 
From the lips with love-buds teaming. 

—Francis Miles French. 



TOBACCO. 

The Indian weed, withered quite, 
Green at noon, cut down at night, 
Shows thy decay ; all flesh is hay. 
Thus thinke, then drinke tobacco. 

The pipe that is so lily-white 
Shows thee to be a mortal wight ; 
And even such, gone with a touch. 
Thus thinke, then drinke tobacco. 

And when the smoke ascends on high, 
Thinke thou beholdst the vanity 
Of worldly stuffe, gone with a puffe. 
Thus thinke, then drinke tobacco. 

And when the pipe grows foul within, 
Think on thy soule defil'd with sin. 
And then the fire it doth require. 
Thus thinke, then drinke tobacco. 



54 POETRY OF SMOKE. 

The ashes that are left behind 
May serve to put thee still in mind, 
That unto dust return thou must. 
Thus thinke, then drinke tobacco. 

—George Wither, 1620. 



A MAIDEN'S WISH. 

The following is derived from a New 
York paper : ** A thoughtful girl says 
that when she dies she desires to have 
tobacco planted over her grave, that the 
weed nourished by her dust may be 
chewed by her bereaved lovers." Stein- 
metz has suggested the lines given below 
as a suitable epitaph for this tobacco- 
loving maiden : 

*' Let no cold marble o'er my body rise. 
But only earth above and sunny skies. 
Thus would I lowly lie in peaceful rest, 
Nursing the Herb Divine, from out my breast. 
Green let it grow above this clay of mine, 
Deriving strength from strength that I resign. 
So in the days to come, when I'm beyond 
This fickle life, will come my lovers fond. 
And, gazing on the plant, their grief restrain 
In whispering, * Lo ! dear Anna blooms again!' '* 



POETRY OF SMOKE. 



55 




MY CIGARETTE. 

My cigarette ! The amulet 

That charms afar unrest and sorrow, 
The magic wand that, far beyond 

To-day, can conjure up to-morrow. 
Like love's desire, thy crown of fire 
So softly with the twilight blending ; 
And ah ! meseems a poet's dreams 
Are in thy wreaths of smoke ascending. 

My cigarette ! Can I forget 

How Kate and I, in sunny weather, 
Sat in the shade the elm-tree made 

And rolled the fragrant weed together? 
I at her side, beatified. 

To hold and guide her fingers willing ; 
She rolling slow the paper's snow, 

Putting my heart in with the filling. 

My cigarette ! I see her yet. 

The white smoke from her red lips curling 
Her dreaming eyes, her soft replies. 

Her gentle sighs, her laughter purling j 
Ah, dainty roll, whose parting soul 

Ebbs out in many a snowy billow ; 
I, too, would burn, if I could earn 

Upon her lips, so soft a pillow. 

Ah, cigarette ! The gay coquette 
Has long forgot the flame she lighted; 



56 POETRY OF SMOKE. 

And you, as I, unthinking by, 
Alike are thrown, alike are slighted. 

The darkness gathers fast without, 
A raindrop on my window plashes ; 

My cigarette and heart are out, 
And naught is left me but the ashes. 

—Charles F. Lummis. 



THOSE ASHES. 

Up to the frescoed ceiling 

The smoke of my cigarette 
In a sinuous spray is reeling, 

Forming flower and minaret. 

What delicious landscape floating 

On perfumed wings I see ; 
Pale swans I am idly noting. 

And queens robed in filigree. 

I see such delicious faces 

As ne'er man saw before. 
And my fancy fondly chases 

Sweet maids on a fairy shore. 

Now to bits my air-castle crashes, 
And those pictures I see no more; 

My grandmother yells : " Them ashes — 
Don't drop them on the floor ! " 

— R. K. MUNKITTRICK. 



POETRY OF SMOKE. 57 



HOW IT ONCE WAS. 

Right stout and strong the worthy burghers 
stood, 

Or rather, sat, 
Drank beer in plenty, ate abundant food ; 
For they to ancient customs still were true, 
And smoked, and smoked, because they surely 
knew 

What they were at. 

William the Testy ruled New Amsterdam— 

A tall man he— 
Whose rule was meant by him to be no sham. 
But rather like the stern parental style 
That sways the city now. He made the while 

A rough decree. 

He ordered that the pipes should cease to 
smoke. 

From that day on. 
The people took the order as a joke ; 
They did not think, who smoked from child- 
hood up. 
That one man such delight would seek to stop, 
Even in fun. 

But when at last it dawned upon their minds 

That this was meant, 
They closed their houses, shut their window- 
blinds. 



58 POETRY OF SMOKE. 

Brought forth tobacco from their ample hoard, 
And to the governor's house with one accord 
The Burghers went. 

They carried chairs, and sat without a word 

Bef -re his porch, 
And smoked, and smoked, and not a sound was 

heard, 
Till Kieft came forth to take the morning air, 
With speech that would have burned them 
then and there. 

If words could scorch. 

But they, however savagely he spoke, 

Made no reply. 
Higher and thicker rose the clouds of smoke, 
And Kieft, perceiving that they would be free, 
Tried not to put in force his harsh decree ; 

But let It die. 

— New York Sun. 




POETRY OF SMOKE. 59 

BEER. 

[By George Arnold^ New York^ 1862^ 

Here, 

With my beer, 
I sit, 

While golden moments flit. 
Alas! 
They pass 
Unheeded by : 
And as they fly, I, 
Being dry. 
Sit, idly sipping here 
My beer ! 
Oh, finer far 
Than fame or riches are 

The graceful smoke wreaths of this free cigar. 
Why 
Should I 

Weep, wail, or sigh ? 
What if Luck has passed me by? 
What if my hopes are dead, 
My pleasures fled ; 
Have I not still 
My fill 

Of right good cheer- 
Cigars and beer? 
Go, whining youth. 
Forsooth ! 
Go, weep and wail. 
Sigh and grow pale, 



60 POETRY OF SMOKE. 

Weave melancholy rhymes 

On the old times, 

Whose joys, like shadowy ghosts, appear 

But leave to me my beer ! 

Gold is dross, 

Love is loss. 

So, if I gulp my sorrows down. 

Or see them drown 

In foamy draughts of old nut-brown, 

Then do I wear the crown, 

Without the cross I 



Sir Walter Raleigh ! name of worth, 

How sweet for thee to know 
King James, who never smoked on earth. 

Is smoking down below. 



ON A TOBACCO JAR. 

Three hundred years ago or soe. 
One worthy knight and gentlemanne 
Did bring me here, to charm and chere, 
To physical and mental manne. 
God bless his soule who filled y© bowle. 
And may our blessings find him ! 
That he not miss some share of blisse 
Who left soe much behind him. 

—Bernard Barker. 



POKTRY OF SMOKE. 6l 

'TWAS OFF THE BLUE 
CANARIES. 

'TwAS off the blue Canary Isles, 

A glorious summer day, 
I sat upon the quarter-deck. 

And whiffed my cares away ; 
And as the volumed smoke arose, 

Like incense in the air, 
I breathed a sigh to think, in sooth, 

It was my last cigar.. 



I leaned upon the quarter rail. 

And looked down in the sea ; 
E'en there the purple wreath of smoke 

Was curling gracefully ; 
Oh ! what had I at such a time 

To do with wasting care ? 
Alas ! the trembling tear proclaimed 

It was my last cigar. 



I watched the ashes'as it came 

Fast drawing to an end ; 
I watched it as a friend would watch 

Beside a dying friend ; 
But still the flame swept slowly on ; 

It vanished into air ; 
I threw it from me, — spare the tale,— 

It was my last cigar. 



62 POETRY OF SMOKE. 

I've seen the land of all I love 

Fade in the distance dim ; 
I've watched above the blighted heart, 

Where once proud hope had been ; 
But I've never known a sorrow 

That could with that compare, 
When off the blue Canaries 

I smoked my last cigar. 

—Joseph Warren Fabens. 



IN WREATHS OF SMOKE. 

In wreaths of smoke, blown waywardwise, 

Faces of olden days uprise, 
And in his dreamer's reverie 
They haunt the smoker's brain, and he 

Breathes for the past regretful sighs. 

Mem'ries of maids, with azure eyes, 
In dewy dells, 'neath June's soft skies, 
Faces that more he'll only see 
In wreaths of smoke. 

Eheu, eheu ! how fast time flies,— 
How youth-time passion droops and dies, 
And all the countless visions flee ! 
How worn would all those faces be. 
Were not they swathed in soft disguise 
In wreaths of smoke ! 

—Frank Newton Holman. 



POETRY OF SMOKE. 63 



THE OLD CLAY PIPE. 

There's a lot of solid comfort 

In an old clay pipe, I find, 
If you're kind of out of humor 

Or in trouble in your mind. 
When you're feeling awful lonesome 

And don't know just what to do, 
There's a heap of satisfaction 

If you smoke a pipe or two. 

The ten thousand pleasant memories 

That are buried in your soul 
Are playing hide and seek with you 

Around that smoking bowl. 
These are mighty restful moments ; 

You're at peace with all the world, 
And the panorama changes 

As the thin blue smoke is curled. 

Now you cross the bridge of sorrows, 

Now you enter pleasant lands. 
And before an open doorway 

You will linger to shake hands 
With a lithe and girlish figure 

That is coming through the door ; 
Ah ! you recognize the features : 

You have seen that face before. 

You are at the dear old homestead 
Where you spent those happy years ; 



64 POETRY OF SMOKE. 

You are romping with the children ; 

You are smiling through your tears ; 
You have fought and whipped the bully— 

You are eight and he is ten. 
Oh ! how rapidly we travel — 

You are now a boy again. 

You approach the open doorway, 

And before the old armchair 
You will stop and kiss the grandma, 

You will smooth the thin white hair ; 
You will read the open Bible, 

For the lamp is lit, you see. 
It is now your hour for bedtime 

And you kneel at mother's knee. 

Still you linger at the hearthstone ; 

You are loath to leave the place ; 
When an apple cut's in progress 

You must wait and dance with Grace. 
What's the matter with the music ? 

Only this : the pipe is broke. 
And a thousand pleasant fancies 

Vanish promptly with the smoke. 

—A. B. Van Fleet. 



KNICKERBOCKER. 

Shade of Herrick, Muse of Locker, 
Help me sing of Knickerbocker ! 
Boughton, had you bid me chant 
Hymns to Peter Stuyvesant, 



POETRY OF SMOKE. 6$ 

Had you bid me sing of Wouter, 
He, the onion head, the doubter ! 
But to rhyme of this one — Mocker ! 
Who shall rhyme to Knickerbocker? 
Nay, but where my hand must fail, 
There the more shall yours avail ; 
You shall take your brush and paint 
All that ring of figures quaint,— 
All those Rip Van Winkle jokers, 
All those solid-looking smokers, 
Pulling at their pipes of amber. 
In the dark-beamed Council Chamber. 



Only art like yours can touch 
Shapes so dignified— and Dutch ; 
Only art like yours can show 
How the pine logs gleam and glow, 
'Till the firelight laughs and passes 
'Twixt the tankards and the glasses, 
Touching with responsive graces 
All those grave Batavian faces, 
Making bland and beatific 
All that session soporific. 



Then I come and write beneath : 
Boughton, he deserves the wreath ; 
He can give us form and hue — 
This the Muse can never do ! 

—Austin Dobson. 



66 POETRY OF SMOKE, 



ODE TO TOBACCO. 

Thou who, when fears attack, 
Bidst them avaunt, and black 
Care, at the horseman's back 

Perching unseatest ; 
Sweet, when the morn is gray ; 
Sweet, when they've cleared away 
Lunch, at the close of day, 

Possibly sweetest : 



I have a liking old 

For thee, though manifold 

Stories, I know, are told. 

Not to thy credit ; 
How one (or two at most) 
Drops make a cat a ghost- 
Useless, except to roast — 

Doctors have said it : 



How they who use fusees 
All grow by slow degrees 
Brainless as chimpanzees, 

Meager as lizards. 
Go mad and beat their wives ; 
Plunge (after shocking lives) 
Razors and carving knives 

Into their gizzards : 



POETRY OF SMOKE. 67 

Confound such knavish tricks I 
Yet know I five or six 
Smokers who freely mix 

Still with their neighbors ; 
Jones (who I'm glad to say, 
Asked leave of Mrs. J.) 
Daily absorbs a clay 

After his labors : 

Cats may have had their goose 
Cooked by tobacco juice ; 
Still why deny its use 

Thoughtfully taken ? 
We're not as tabbies are : 
Smith, take a fresh cigar ! 
Jones, the tobacco jar ! 

Here's to thee, Bacon ! 

— C. S. Calverley. 



MY FRIENDLY PIPE. 

Let sybarites still dream delights 
While smoking cigarettes, 

Whose opiates get in their pates, 
Till waking brings regrets ; 

Oh, let them doze, devoid of woes, 
Of troubles, and of frets. 

And let the chap who loves to nap 
With his cigar in hand 



68 POETRY OF SMOKE. 

Pursue his way, and live his day, 
As runs Time's changing sand ; 

Let him delight, by day and night, 
In his peculiar brand. 

But as for me, I love to be 

Provided with a pipe ; 
A rare old bowl, to warm my soul, 

A meerschaum, brown and ripe — 
Nor good plug cut, no stump or butt, 

Nor filthy gutter snipe. 

My joys increase ! It brings me peace, 

As nothing else can do ; 
From all the strife of daily life, 

Here my relief is true. 
I watch its rings ; it purrs and sings— 

And, then, it's cheaper, too ! 

—Detroit Tj'ibtme. 



CHOOSING A WIFE BY A PIPE 
OF TOBACCO. 

Tube, I love thee as my life ; 
By thee I mean to choose a wife. 
Tube, thy color let me find. 
In her skin, and in her mind. 
Let her have a shape as fine ; 
Let her breath be sweet as thine ; 
Let her, when her lips I kiss. 
Burn like thee, to give me bliss ; 



POETRY OF SMOKE. 6g 

Let her in some smoke or other, 
All my failings kindly smother. 
Often when my thoughts are low^ 
Send them where they ought to go ; 
When to study I incline, 
Let her aid be such as thine ; 
Such as thine the charming power 
In the vacant social hour. 
Let her live to give delight, 
Ever warm and ever bright : 
Let her deeds, whene'er she dies, 
Mount as incense to the skies. 

—Ge?itlemafi's Magazi?ie. 



A BACHELOR'S SOLILOQUY. 

My oldest pipe, my dearest girl, 

Alas ! which shall it be ? 
For she has said that I must choose 

Betwixt herself and thee. 

Farewell, old pipe ; for many years 
You've been my closest friend, 

And ever ready at my side 
Thy solace sweet to lend. 

No more from out thy weedy bowl, 
When fades the twilight's glow. 

Will visions fair and sweet arise 
Or fragrant fancies flow. 

No more by flick'ring candlelight 
Thy spirit I'll invoke, 



70 



POETRY OF SMOKE. 



To build my castles in the air 
With wreaths of wav'ring smoke. 

And so farewell, a long farewell— 

Until the wedding's o'er, 
And then I'll go on smoking thee, 
Just as I did before. 

—Edmund Day, 
In the Dramatic Mirror, 



I LIKE cigars 

Beneath the stars, 

Upon the waters blue. 
To laugh and float 
While rocks the boat 

Upon the waves— don't you ? 

To rest the oar 
And float to shore,— 

While soft the moonbeams shine,—- 
To laugh and joke 
And idly smoke, 

I think is quite divine. 

—Ella Wheeler Wilcox. 





SMOKERS* STORIES. 7I 



BISMARCK'S LAST CIGAR. 

Grant and Bismarck, the one 
the European, and the other the 
American "man of blood and 
iron," were equally famous for their 
devotion to a good cigar. No cari- 
caturist who drew Grant without 
a cigar in his mouth could hope to rise 
in his profession. Bismarck once told 
a group of visitors the following story : 
" The value of a good cigar,'* said he, 
proceeding to light an excellent Havana, 
"is best understood when it is the last 
you possess, and there is no chance of 
getting another. At Koniggratz I had 
only one cigar left in my pocket, which I 
carefully guarded during the whole of the 
battle, as a miser guards his treasure. I 
did not feel justified in using it. I painted 
in glowing colors in my mind the happy 
hour when I should enjoy it after the 
victory. But I had miscalculated my 



72 

chances. A poor dragoon lay helpless, 
with both arms crushed, murmuring for 
something to refresh him. I felt in my 
pockets, and found that I had only gold, 
which would be of no use to him. But 
stay — I had still my treasured cigar ! 1 
lighted it for him, and placed it between 
his teeth. You should have seen the 
poor fellow's grateful smile ! I never 
enjoyed a cigar so much as that one 
which I did not smoke." 



THE USES OF CIGAR ASH. 

Cigar ashes, mingled with cam- 
phorated chalk, make an excellent tooth- 
powder; or, ground with poppy-oil, will 
afford for the use of the painter a varied 
series of delicate grays. Old Isaac Ostade 
so utilized the ashes of his pipe, but had 
he been aware of Havanas, he would 
have given us pictures even more pearly 
in tone than those which he has left for 
the astonishment and delight of mankind. 



smokers' stories. 73 

JULES SANDEAU ON THE 
CIGAR. 

The cigar is one of the greatest 
triumphs of the Old World over the New. 
It would be curious to trace the origin of 
the cigar, to watch its gradual develop- 
ment, and to observe its rapid growth and 
wide distribution. We might study, too, 
all the transformations it has undergone 
in passing from the homely lips of the com- 
monalty to the rose-colored lips of our 
dandies. Indeed, its history would not 
be wholly devoid of interest, for no epoch, 
perhaps, can show an example of fortune 
so rapid as that of the cigar. The cigar 
is ubiquitous ; it is the indispensable com- 
plement of all idle and elegant life ; the 
man who does not smoke cannot be re- 
garded as perfect. The cigar of to-day 
has taken the place of the little romances, 
coffee, and verses of the seventeenth cen- 
tury. I am not talking of the primitive 
cigar, whose poisonous odor a«id acrid 



74 smokers' stories. 



and repulsive flavor reached one's mar- 
tyred lips through the tube of a straw. 
Civilization has truly altered such early 
simplicity. Spain, Turkey, and Havana 
have yielded up to us the most precious 
treasures of their smoke-enwrapt dream- 
land ! and our lips can now filter the per- 
fumed vapor of odoriferous leaves which 
have crossed the sea at our summons. 
Do not ask me to describe the charms of 
the reverie, or the contemplative ecstasy 
into which the smoke of our cigar 
plunges us. Words are powerless to ex- 
press or define these " states "; they are 
vague and mysterious, as unseizable as 
the sweetly scented clouds which are 
emitted from your " Mexico " or your 
" Panatella.'' Only let me tell you that 
if you have ever found yourself extended 
upon a divan with soft and downy 
cushions, on some winter's evening, be- 
fore a clear and sparkling fire, enveloping 
the globe of your lamp or the white light 
of your wax-candle with the smoke of a 



smokers' stories. 75 

well-seasoned cigar, letting your thoughts 
ascend as uncertain and vaporous as the 
smoke floating around you, let me tell 
you, I repeat, that if you have never yet 
enjoyed the situation, you still have to 
be initiated into one of the sweetest of 
our terrestrial joys. Casanovia, the im- 
modest Venetian who wrote his own 
memoirs, so that no one should be able 
to discover any eccentricities he had not 
committed, pretends that the smoker's 
sole pleasure consists in seeing the smoke 
escape from his lips. I think, O 
Venetian ! that you have touched a false 
note here. The smoke of the cigar pro- 
duces the same effect as opium, in that 
it leads to a state of febrile exaltation, a 
perennial source of new pleasures. The 
cigar deadens sorrow, distracts our en- 
forced inactivity, renders idleness sweet 
and easy to us, and peoples our solitude 
with a thousand gracious images. Soli- 
tude without friend or cigar is indeed in- 
supportable to those who suffer. . . 



76 smokers' stories. 



TENNYSON AS A SMOKER. 

The Poet Laureate was a great smoker. 
He never, with Charles Lamb, praised 
*' Bacchus' black servant, negro fine," 
nor with Byron hymned the delights of 
** sublime Tobacco " ; but he dearly loved 
the weed for all that. Poet and dweller 
in the empyrean though he was, he knew 
nothing of Mr. Ruskin's scorn for those 
who " pollute the pure air of the morning 
with cigar smoke." But he did not affect 
the Havana in any of its varied forms. 
His joy was in a pipe of genuine Virginia 
tobacco. A brother poet, who spent a 
week with him at his country-seat, sa3^s 
that Partagas, Regalias, and Cabanas had 
no charm for him. 

He preferred a pipe, and of all the pipes 
in the world the common clay pipe was 
his choice. His den was at the top of 
the house. Thither he repaired after 
breakfast, and in the midst of a sea of 



SMOKERS STORIES. 77 

booKs on the shelves, tables, chairs, and 
floor, toiled away until he was fatigued. 
These hours of labor were as absolutely- 
sacred as were Richter's. No human 
being, unless upon an errand of life or 
death, was allowed to intrude upon him 
then ; but when his morning's work was 
done, he was glad to see his friends — sent 
for them, indeed, or announced by a little 
bell his readiness to receive them. As 
soon as they entered, pipes were lighted. 
Of these pipes he had a great store, 
mostly presents from admirers and friends. 
The visitor had his choice, be it a 
hookah, narghile, meerschaum, or dhu- 
deen. Tennyson was familiar with all 
grades of smoking tobacco, and the guest 
could select at will Latakia, Connecticut 
leaf, Perique, Lone Jack, Michigan, Killi- 
kinick, Highlander, or any of the English 
brands. The poet himself followed the 
good old plan of his forefathers, from 
Raleigh downward. At his feet were a 
box full of white clay pipes. Filling one of 



78 smokers' stories. 

these, he would smoke until it was empty, 
break it in twain, and throw the fragments 
into another box prepared for their recep- 
tion. Then he pulled another pipe from 
its straw or wooden inclosure, filled it, 
lighted it, and destroyed it as before. He 
would not smoke a pipe a second time. 
Meanwhile, high discourse went on, inter- 
rupted not seldom by the poet's reading 
select passages from the manuscript which 
was as yet scarcely dry. So the hours were 
whiled delightfully away until it was time 
to stroll on the cliffs or dress for dinner. 



TOBACCO IN NORTH 
AMERICA. 

Mr. Fairholt gives the following 
version of the Indian tradition as to its 
first appearance in North America : '* A 
Swedish minister who took occasion to 
inform the chiefs of the Susquehanna 
Indians, in a kind of sermon, of the prin- 
cipal historical facts on which the Chris- 



smokers' stories. 79 

tian religion is founded, and particularly 
the fall of our first parents, was thus 
answered by an old Indian orator : * What 
you have told us is very good ; we thank 
you for coming so far to tell us those 
things you have heard from your mothers ; 
in return we will tell you what we have 
heard from ours. In the beginning we 
had only flesh of animals to eat ; and if 
they failed, we starved. Two of our 
hunters having killed a deer and broiled 
a part of it, saw a young woman descend 
from the clouds, and seat herself on a 
hill hard by. Said one to the other : ** It 
is a spirit, perhaps, that has smelt our 
venison ; let us offer some of it to her." 
They accordingly gave her the tongue. 
She was pleased with its flavor and said : 
" Your kindness shall be rewarded ; come 
here thirteen moons hence, and you shall 
find it." They did so, and found maize 
growing; where her left hand had been, 
kidney beans; and where she had sat 
they found tobacco' " 



8o smokers' stories. 

We are told that the Indians were 
so constant in their devotion to the pipe 
that they used it as Europeans use a 
watch, and in reckoning the time any- 
thing occupied would say : " I was one 
pipe (of time) about it.'* When circum- 
stances have prevented him from pro- 
curing an ordinary pipe, the Indian has 
been known to dig a small hole in the 
ground, light his tobacco in it, and draw 
the smoke through a reed. If they fall 
short of provisions when on a long jour- 
ney, they mix the juice of tobacco with 
powdered shells, in the form of little balls, 
which they keep in their mouths, and the 
gradual solution of which serves to coun- 
teract the uneasy craving of the stomach. 




8i 



SHAKESPEARE AND TOBACCO. 

It is a curious fact that no allusion to 
" divine Tobacco," as Spenser calls it, is 
to be found in the works of Shakespeare, 
though Ben Jonson and his contem- 
poraries indulge in jests at the expense 
of the lately imported weed, which was 
smoked under the very noses of the 
players by the gilded youth of the period, 
who were wont to take up their positions 
upon the stage where stools were placed 
for them, and smoke incessantly during 
the whole performance. 

Shakespeare being the favorite play- 
wright of James I., whose hatred of smok- 
ing is well-known, it is not surprising that 
he failed to notice it favorably in the days 
of that monarch; but that the companion 
of Raleigh and Bacon at the " Mermaid " 
should have nothing to say upon the sub- 
ject is an enigma which some future Shake- 
spearean scholar may perhaps unravel. 



82 smoker's stories. 



WHAT ^* TOBACCO" MEANS. 

I MUST beg leave to dissent from some- 
body who has written very unfavorably 
of smoking tobacco as bad for the lungs, 
etc. If he means to say that the frequent 
practice of smoking, and such a habit of 
doing it as that a man cannot be happy 
without it, is a prejudicial thing, I agree 
with him. Tobacco smoke is a stimulant, 
and therefore the frequent and immoder- 
ate use of it must tend to weaken the con- 
stitution in the same way, though in a 
much smaller degree, that dram-drinking 
or anything else that excites the nervous 
system does. But against the moderate 
and occasional use of it there exists no 
rational objection. It is a valuable article 
in medicine. I have known much good 
from its various cases, and have myself 
been recovered by it, at times, from a 
languor which neither company nor wine 
was able to dissipate. 



smokers' stories. 83 

Although, therefore, I shall not decide 
on the justness of the etymology, I must 
clearly assent to the truth of the fact 
asserted by that critic who found its 
name to be derived from three Hebrew 
words which, if I recollect aright, were 
Tod'Bonus, Ac A'FumuSf ^-Ejus, " Good 
is the smoke thereof." 

— Gentleman's Magazine (1788). 



EMERSON AND CARLYLE. 

The friendship formed by these two 
men at Craigenputtock lasted during 
their lives. There is an unpublished 
legend to the effect that on the one 
evening passed at Craigenputtock by 
Emerson, in 1833, Carlyle gave him a 
pipe, and, taking one himself, the two 
sat silent till midnight, and then parted, 
shaking hands, with congratulations on 
the profitable and pleasant evening they 
had enjoyed. 



84 SMOKERS* STORIES. 



NAPOLEON'S FIRST PIPE. 

Constant relates the following anec- 
dote of the great NAPOLEON, who once 
took a fancy to smoke, for the purpose of 
trying a very fine Oriental pipe which 
had been presented to him by a Turkish 
or Persian ambassador. 

" Fire having been brought, it only 
remained to communicate it to the tobacco, 
but that could never be effected by the 
method which his Majesty adopted. He 
contented himself with alternately open- 
ing and shutting his mouth, without 
attempting to draw in his breath, * Oh, 
the devil ! ' cried he at last, ' there will be 
no end of this business.* I observed to 
him that he did it half-heartedly, and 
showed him how he ought to begin. But 
the Emperor always returned to his 
yawning. Wearied by his vain efforts, he 
at last desired me to light the pipe. I 
obeyed, and gave it to him. But scarcely 



SMOKERS* STORIES. 85 

had he drawn in a mouthful than the 
smoke, which he knew not how to expel, 
turned back into his palate, penetrated 
into his throat, and came out by his nose 
and blinded him. 

"As soon as he recovered his breath, 
he ejaculated, 'Take that away from me ! 
What abomination ! Oh ! the swine ! — 
my stomach turns.' In fact, he felt him- 
self so incommoded for at least an hour, 
that he renounced forever the pleasure of 
a habit which he said was only fit to 
amuse sluggards." 



MAZZINrS SANG-FROID AS A 
SMOKER. 

This famous Italian exile was fore- 
warned that his assassination had been 
planned and that men had been dis- 
patched to London for the purpose, but 
he made no attempt to exclude them from 
his house. One day the conspirators 



86 smokers' stories. 

entered his room and found him listlessly 
smoking. " Take cigars, gentlemen," 
was his instant invitation. Chatting and 
hesitation on their part followed. '* But 
you do not proceed to business, gentle- 
men," said Mazzini. " I believe your in- 
tention is to kill me." The astounded 
miscreants fell on their knees, and at 
length departed with the generous par- 
don accorded them. 

Mazzini's last years in England were 
spent at Old Brompton. The modest 
chambers he occupied in Onslow Ter- 
race were strewed with papers and the 
tables provided with cigars, that friends 
who called might select their brands and 
join him. He always kept a cigar burning 
while he wrote. Canaries flew free about 
the room. Lord Montairy, in " Lothair," 
smoked cigars so mild and delicate in 
flavor that his wife never found him out. 
Mazzini surely must have had some Mon- 
tairy cigars, for his canaries did not find 
him out, or object to him if they did ! 



SMOKERS* STORIES. 87 



A SMOKER IN VENICE. 

The late Earl Russell once gave a 
large party to which the Poet Laureate 
(Tennyson) was invited, and during the 
evening his lordship, sauntering up and 
down his magnificent halls, happened to 
recognize Tennyson. 

"Haul Mr. Tennyson, how d'ye do? 
glad to see you. Hau ! you've been 
traveling lately, I hear. How did you 
like Venice, hau? Fine thing to be in 
Venice! Did you visit the Bridge of 
Sighs, hau ? " 

" Yes." 

** And saw all the pictures, hau ! and 
works of art in that wonderful city, did 
you not, hau ? " 

" I didn't like Venice ! " 

"Hau! Indeed! Why not, Mr. 
Tennyson ? " 

" They had no good cigars there, my 
lord ; and I left the place in disgust." 



88 smokers' stories. 

MILTON'S PIPE. 

Milton was a smoker. When com- 
posing on " Paradise Lost," he portioned 
out each day in the following manner : 
As soon as he rose, a chapter of the 
Bible was read out to him (he was then 
blind). He afterward studied till twelve, 
taking an hour's exercise before he dined. 
After dinner, he devoted himself to 
music, playing on the organ, and he then 
resumed his studies till six o'clock. 
Visitors were received from six till eight, 
at which hour he supped, and having 
had his pipe of tobacco and glass of 
water, he retired for the night. 



PROFESSOR HUXLEY ON 
SMOKING. 

At a debate upon '• Smoking'' among 
the members of the British Association, 
many speakers denounced and others ad- 



89 



vocated the practice. Professor Huxley 
said, " For forty years of my life, tobacco 
has been a deadly poison to me. \^Loud 
cheers from the anti-tobacco?tzsts .'] In 
my youth, as a medical student, I tried to 
smoke. In vain ! at every fresh attempt 
my insidious foe stretched me prostrate 
on the floor. [Repeated cheersJ] I en- 
tered the navy ; again I tried to smoke, 
and again met with a defeat. I hated 
tobacco. I could almost have lent my 
support to any institution that had for its 
object the putting of tobacco-smokers to 
death. [ Vociferous applause^ A few 
years ago I was in Brittany with some 
friends. We went to an inn. They 
began to smoke. They looked very 
happy, and outside it was very wet and 
dismal. I thought I would try a cigar. 
\Mur7nurs?^ I did so. [Great expecta- 
tions, '\ I smoked that cigar — it was de- 
licious ! \Groans^ From that moment 
I was a changed man ; and I now feel 
that smoking in moderation is a comfort- 



go SMOKERS* STORIES. 

able and laudable practice, and is produc- 
tive of good. [Disfnay and confusion of 
the anti-tobacconists. Roars of laugh- 
ter from the smoker s,^ There is no 
more harm in a pipe than there is in a cup 
of tea. You may poison yourself by 
drinking too much green tea, and kill 
yourself by eating too many beef-steaks. 
For my own part, I consider that to- 
bacco, in moderation, is a sweetener and 
equalizer of the temper." [^Total rout 
of the anti-tobacconists and complete 
triumph of the smokers^ 



ROBERT BURNS^ SNUFF-BOX. 

Robert Burns was never happier 
than when he could "pass a winter 
evening under some venerable roof and 
smoke a pipe of tobacco or drink water 
gruel." He also took it in snuff. Mr. 
Bacon, who kept a celebrated posting- 
house north of Dumfries, was his almost 



SMOKERS* STORIES. 9I 

inseparable associate. Many a merry 
night did they spend together over their 
cups of foaming ale or bowls of whisky 
toddy, and on some of those occasions 
Burns composed several of his best con- 
vivial songs. The bard and the innkeeper 
became so attached to each other that, 
as a token of regard, Burns gave Bacon 
his snuff-box, which for many years had 
been his pocket companion. 

The knowledge of this gift was con- 
fined to a few of their jovial brethren. 
But after Bacon's death, in 1825, when 
his household furniture was sold by 
public auction, this snuff-box was offered 
among other trifles, and someone in the 
crowd at once bid a shilling for it. 
There was a general exclamation that it 
was not worth twopence, and the auc- 
tioneer seemed about to knock it down. 
He first looked, however, at the lid, and 
then read in a tremendous voice the fol- 
lowing inscription upon it : " Robert 
Burns, officer of the Excise.'* Scarcely 



92 SMOKERS STORIES. 

had he uttered the words, says one who 
was present at the sale, before shilling 
after shilling was rapidly and confusedly 
offered for this relic of Scotland's great 
bard, the greatest anxiety prevailing ; 
while the biddings rose higher and 
higher, till the trifle was finally knocked 
down for five pounds. The box was 
made of the tip of a horn, neatly turned 
round at the point ; its lid is plainly 
mounted with silver, on which the in- 
scription is engraved. 



A SMOKING EMPRESS. 

The Empress of Austria is, perhaps, 
the only royal or imperial lady of the 
present age who may be regarded from a 
nicotian point of view with entire satis- 
faction. When at home she is generally 
very tired, and having little taste for read- 
ing, lolls back in a deep, soft armchair, 
or lies on a sofa, puffing cigarettes. She 
has an album by her, with photographs 



smokers' stories. 93 

of her horses, her favorite dogs, her chil- 
dren, and her grandchild. She hates 
brilliant assemblies, and thinks parlia- 
ments contemptible. Very capricious 
and strong-willed in carrying out her 
whims, she can, in the German fashion, 
put rank aside, and be very charming to 
those who surround her, if such is her 
good pleasure. Captain Middleton, who 
is her esquire in the hunting-fields of 
England and Ireland, has never had a 
harsh word from her Majesty. With the 
circus-girl Elsie, who was a year or two 
ago the idol of the Parisian boulevardiers, 
her Majesty is almost motherly. The two 
smoke cigarettes together, and talk gayly 
on equestrian subjects — the only subjects, 
indeed, which interest the Kaiserin. 



AN INGENIOUS SMOKER. 

The famous Bishop Burnet, like many 
authors of later days, was very partial to 
tobacco, and always smoked while he was 



94 



writing. In order to combine the two 
operations with perfect comfort to himself, 
he would bore a hole through the broad 
brim of his large hat, and putting the 
stem of his long pipe through it, puff and 
write, and write and puff, with learned 
gravity. 

This singular device, however, did not 
originate with the English divine, since 
Heine concludes some ponderous joking 
on those who have liked and those who 
have disliked tobacco (among the latter 
he himself being included), with the re- 
mark that the great Boxhornius also loved 
tobacco, and that " in smoking he wore a 
hat with a broad brim, in the fore part of 
which he had a hole, through which the 
pipe was stuck, that it might not hinder 
his studies." 

This famous scholar and critic, who 
died at Leyden in 1653, was wont, with 
the modesty of genuine erudition, to 
say : 

*'How many things there are that we 



SMOKERS STORIES. 95 

do not know!" Whereupon someone 
has remarked that there was one thing 
certainly that Boxhornius did not know, 
and that was how to moderate himself in 
the use of tobacco, inasmuch as by smok- 
ing incessantly he shortened his life. 



RALEIGH'S TOBACCO-BOX. 

Sir Walter Raleigh was no nig- 
gard of his tobacco, if we may judge 
from the size of his box. In 1719 this 
relic was preserved in the museum of 
Mr. Ralph Thoresby of Leeds. It was 
cylindrical in form, about seven inches in 
diameter and thirteen inches high ; the 
outside was of gilt leather, and in the 
inside was a cavity for a receiver of glass 
or metal, which would hold about a 
pound of tobacco. A kind of collar, con- 
necting the receiver with the case, was 
pierced with holes for pipes, 



96 



SMOKING IN 1610. 



From the following passage in Ben 
Jonson's play, "The Alchemist," first 
acted in 1610, we gather some curious 
particulars respecting the business of a 
tobacconist of that period. It occurs in 
the first act, where Abel Drugger is in- 
troduced to Subtle : 

*' This my friend Abel, an honest fellow ; 
He lets nae have good tobacco, and he does not 
Sophisticate it with sack-lees or oil, 
Nor washes it in muscadel and grains, 
Nor buries it in gravel, underground, 
Wrapped up in greasy leather, . . . 
But keeps it in fine lily pots that, open'd, 
Smell like conserve of roses, or French beans. 
He has his maple block, his silver tongs, 
Winchester pipes, and fire of juniper ; 
A neat, spruce, honest fellow. . ." 

The Virginian tobacco was usually im- 
ported in the leaf, and had to be rubbed 
small for smoking. The Spanish tobacco 
was manufactured into balls about the 
size of a man's head, and was also im- 
ported in the form of what the French 



97 

term caroiies, which were known in Eng- 
land by an obscene name, hardly yet 
obsolete among sailors. Not fifty years 
ago a story was current in the West In- 
dies, of a facetious reply given by a sailor 
to his captain's wife, who, happening to 
see him employed about some tobacco, 
asked him what he was going to make of 
it: '' Penem volo fabrzcarz, domzna, sed 
vereor ne ex tllo cdleos faczam." This 
carotte and ball tobacco was cut as re- 
quired into small pieces on a maple block 
with a knife, and the pipe — shorter and 
straighter in the stem and more upright 
in the bowl than those of our own day — 
being filled, was lighted by embers of 
Juniper wood, taken from a kind of 
chafing dish by silver tongs. 



PIGS AND SMOKERS. 

** Brother G.,*' said one clergyman to 
another, " is it possible you smoke to- 
bacco ? Pray, give up the unseemly prac- 



98 



tice. It is alike unclerical and uncleanly. 
Tobacco! Why, my dear brother, even 
a pig would not smoke so vile a v^^eed ! " 
Brother G. delivered a mild outpouring 
of tobacco-fumes, and then as mildly said, 
** I suppose, Brother C, you don't smoke ? " 
" No, indeed ! " exclaimed his friend, with 
virtuous horror. Another puff or two, 
and then Brother G., who prefers the so- 
cratic method of argument, rejoined, 
** Then, dear brother, which is more like 
the pig — you or I ? " 



THE SOCIAL PIPE. 

Honest men, with pipes or cigars in 
their mouths, have great physical advan- 
tages in conversation. You may stop 
talking if you like, but the breaks of 
silence never seem disagreeable, being 
filled up by the puffing of the smoke ; 
hence there is no awkwardness in resum- 
ing the conversation, no straining for 
effect — sentiments are delivered in a 
grave, easy manner. The cigar harmo- 



SMOKERS STORIES. 



99 



nizes the society, and soothes at once the 
speaker and the subject whereon he con- 
verses. I have no doubt that it is from 
the habit of smoking that the Turks and 
American Indians are such monstrous 
well-bred men. The pipe draws wisdom 
from the lips of the philosopher, and shuts 
up the mouth of the foolish ; it generates 
a style of conversation, contemplative, 
thoughtful, benevolent and unaffected ; 
in fact, dear Bob,— I must out with it, 
— I am an old smoker. At home, I have 
done it up the chimney rather than not do 
it (the which I own is a crime). 

I vow and believe that the cigar has 
been one of the greatest creature-com- 
forts of my life — a kind companion, a 
gentle stimulant, an amiable anodyne, a 
cementer of friendship. 

— Thackeray. 




lOO TOBACCO FACTS. 

AGES ATTAINED BY GREAT 
SMOKERS. 

Inveterate smokers have reached 
very great ages. Hobbes, who smoked 
twelve pipes a day at Chatsworth, at- 
tained the age of 92 ; Izaak Walton, 90 ; 
Dr. Carr, 78 ; all devoted lovers of the 
pipe ; and Dr. Isaac Barrow called tobacco 
his "panpharmacon." 

In 1769, died Abraham Favrot, a Swiss 
baker, aged 104; to the last he walked 
firmly, read without spectacles, and al- 
ways had a pipe in his mouth. 

In 1845, di^d Pheasy Molly, of Buxton, 
Derbyshire, aged 96 ; she was burned to 
death, her clothes becoming ignited while 
lighting her pipe at the fire. 

In 1856, there died at Wellbury, North 
Riding of Yorkshire, Jane Garbutt, aged 
no; she retained her faculties and en- 
joyed her pipe to the last. She had 
smoked " very nigh a hundred years." 



TOBACCO FACTS. lOI 

Wadd, in his Comments on Corpulency, 
mentions an aged Effendi, " whose back 
was bent like a bow, and who was in the 
habit of taking daily four ounces of rice, 
thirty cups of coffee, three grains of 
opium, besides smoking sixty pipes of 
tobacco." Mr. Chatto, in his amusing 
Paper of Tobacco, relates that some time 
ago there was living at Hildhausen, in 
Silesia, a certain Heinrich Hertz, aged 
142, who had been a tobacco-taker from 
his youth and still continued to smoke a 
pipe or two every day. 

Although the lovers of smoking have 
pressed Old Parr into their evidence in 
its favor, they must yield to the authority 
of Taylor, the Water-Poet, who in his 
Oldy Old, very Old Man ; or, the Age 
and Life of Thomas Parr, says : 

** He had but little time to waste, 
Or at the ale-house, huff-cap ale to taste ; 
Nor did he ever hunt a tavern fox ; 
Ne'er knew a coach, tobacco,'' etc. 



102 SOME SALESMEN AND OTHERS, 

SOME SALESMEN AND 
OTHERS. 

The typical traveling man knows how 
to wear good clothes, and will converse 
upon any subject from protoplasm to the 
rearing of children. He will " josh " a 
baby up and down to relieve a tired 
mother on a long journey, and is willing 
at any time to usurp from the landscape 
the pretty girl's attention to himself and 
his deeds of prowess, from *' delightful 
trips " and " car load lots " to the '* best 
room in the house." 

It is not his fault if the pretty girl 
suffers from en7iui. If she will only give 
him a fair show he will surely hit upon 
something to make her journey pleasant. 
He knows everybody and eveiything 
worth knowing. Her name may be 
Smith. One of his very best customers — 
an " elegant gentleman," is named Smith. 
Or " you remind me very much of a 



SOME SALESMEN AND OTHERS. IO3 

friend in New York." ** Never been to 
New York } " " We will have to look 
into your case." 

And then he draws a very graphic 
picture " of the only town in the country." 
She is charmed — nay, fascinated. Per- 
haps he invites her to have a little lunch 
on the train. They dine en route, and he 
owns the car. How the waiter hustles 
for him. What graceful table manners 
he affects. What fascinating " noth- 
ings " he pours into her ears. Her heart 
is no longer in the country town. It is 
traveling at the rate of forty miles an 
hour and beating very fast. If she were 
a possible customer now what a bill of 
goods he would sell. But alas, she is 
only a trusting maiden. He knows it, 
and regrets he has charmed her so. He 
is a gentleman, as most of his kind are. 
Then he assumes the brotherly role, and 
when her station is reached her heart is 
back again in the country town. She has 
a pleasant memory to feed on for some 



104 SOME SALESMEN AND OTHERS. 

time to come, and he has had the satis- 
faction of making what might have been 
a tiresome ride a pleasant time for the 
maid at least. 

Gallant and chivalrous as the ** typical " 
generally is, he is just as accomplished in 
other ways. Versatile to his finger tips, 
he is perfectly capable of running the 
train (should the conductor suddenly 
die) or holding up the passengers, for 
that matter, if he found he was 
*' broke." 

But there is a class of traveling men 
who possess all of the above qualities, and 
some others. 

They are the unique creatures who are 
known as Cigar Salesmen. 

" And the wonder of it is there are no 
two of them alike." 

In fact, there are so many different 
kinds of them that if one hundred were 
assembled together in one room it would 
be impossible to classify them in bunches 
of fivt as '* Exhibit A," " B," etc. 



SOME SALESMEN AND OTHERS. I05 

There are four distinct types, however, 
which stand out prominently on the land- 
scape. They are like a certain brand of 
bicycle — " you see them everywhere," and 
they don't have to be labeled. For that 
reason it is easier to draw a pen picture 
of them. 

We will call type No. i. 

Jimmy Smirk to the front. This 
gentleman is the most beautiful specimen 
of the cigar salesman now in existence. 
He was discovered about fifteen years 
ago — when he was twenty-five years 
old — sighing and looking at some laven- 
der " pants " in a tailor's window. How 
he got where he is, is too long a story, but 
he is at present representing a big cigar 
manufacturer in the West. 

It is said that he is only ten hours 
behind the latest London and Paris styles. 
Leading tailors of both these places 
always have a copy of his route before 
them so that if any new style is adopted 
he is cabled to at once. Perhaps this 



I06 SOME SALESMEN AND OTHERS. 

may not be strictly true, but it is given as 
a fact that last winter he received the 
following cable from London : 

** Prince of Wales' new overcoat is 
without pockets. " 

And Jimmy immediately wired back : 
** Char7ni7ig i^inovation. Fit take the 
same,*' And so Jimmy was seen once — 
just once — in Denver, Salt Lake City, 
San Francisco, and other points with the 
pocketless overcoat. 

Some people thought it a rather giddy 
coat, and began to make inquiries about 
the wearer. When they found he was a 
cigar salesman their admiration was great. 
Jimmy got into the papers. Smokers 
began to ask their retail dealer what 
house he represented. There were so 
many inquiries, that out of self-protection 
the retailers had to buy some of Jimmy's 
cigars. People wanted to know him. 
They found him a good fellow who knew 
how to wear clothes without being con- 
scious that he was " a man apart." 



SOME SALESMEN AND OTHERS. I07 

" Clever dog ! " An advertising genius 
who makes his luxurious tastes produce 
sales and profits. 

The Cosy Corner cigar salesman 
couldn't do as Jimmy does. Beware of 
him. He is as insidious as absinthe. 
What a rippling, bell-like laugh he has, 
and stories. It is rumored that he 
carries a bottle of stuff that when in- 
jected into the system produces instan- 
taneous good nature. Clothes ; he'll 
have none of them that he can't wear all 
the time. Not even an extra pair of 
trousers. He sells you a bill of goods 
when you're not looking. And so easy. 
You have had the best dinner for many 
a day, and laughter enough to last a 
month. ** I told that stoiy of yours to 
fifty people, and they nearly died." In 
the middle of the second bottle the 
** Cosy Corner " produces cigars. By 
that time you love the world. You in- 
sist upon giving him a big order. He 
doesn't want to sell you now, " but, if 



I08 SOME SALESMEN AND OTHERS. 

you insist, I will book it." That's his 
way, and you like it. 

The cold-blooded business man doesn't 
care for small bottles. He never drinks, 
and looks upon life through crackers-and- 
milk and tea-and-toast spectacles. He 
is the closest buyer in the business. 
Prices talk with him, and nothing else. 
For that reason our friend Charlie 
Hustler can do business with him. 
Charlie travels for a cheap cigar concern, 
sells everybody he can, and when you 
turn around to speak to him he is on the 
train for the next town. Queer fellow, 
Charlie. He is the ** Electric Spark " of 
the trade. Nobody ever saw him sit 
down, or to be without a sample case. 
If he is to take a nine o'clock train, you 
will find him quoting prices at 8.40 to 
some retailer. He carries his cards and 
railroad ticket in his hat, makes out his 
orders on the train, and foots up his sales 
while waiting for the different courses at 
dinner. You are wrapt in admiration for 



SOME SALESMEN AND OTHERS. I09 

him, but for the real thing the Colonel is 
the best. Not to know the " Colonel " is 
to have missed 

** A loyal, just, and upright gentleman." 

The above quotation is the keynote of 
the " Colonel's " character, for if there 
ever v^as a courteous, chivalrous, and 
picturesque human being, he is one. Of 
such stuff as this is the '* Colonel " made. 
Is it any wonder that his success as a 
cigar salesman has enabled him to retire 
with all his honors flush upon him. 

Ask the " Colonel " to talk about him- 
self and he is silent. " Really, my dear 
boy, there's nothing interesting about me. 
It is true I have sold a few cigars in my 
day, but plenty of others have done the 
same." From another source, however, 
you learn that not many others have done 
** the same.'* You also learn that the 
*' Colonel " is modest, and when you ask 
him about a twenty-five thousand dollar 



no SOME SALESMEN AND OTHERS. 

sale he once made, he does admit it was 
true. 

" What was your secret in selling 
cigars ? " 

" Simply doing the best I know how. 
Telling the truth about my goods, so that 
the customer knew it was the truth, and 
letting the price do the rest." 

And there you have the ''Colonel." 
There was no secret in his way of doing 
business, and since he will not talk about 
himself, let us hear what he has to say in 
a general way. 

" A large dry goods merchant out in 
Chicago used to say to his traveling 
men : ' Keep down your expenses. 
Remember that a cigar goes a long way.' 

" This may or may not be true in 
the dry goods business," continued the 
" Colonel." " In the cigar trade the giv- 
ing of a cigar cuts no figure. It could not 
by any possible means bring about a 
friendly feeling between buyer and sales- 
man. If the cigar is good, and your 



SOME SALESMEN AND OTHERS. Ill 

prices right, it will assist, like a sample of 
anything else, to make the sale. Cigars 
given away socially should go a long way, 
however. 

" To me it is a proof of esteem to have 
a friend give me one of his cigars. 
Something that he has put time, trouble, 
and even study in finding to his taste, he 
shares with me. Isn't that a graceful 
compliment to pay a friend ? 

" While on the subject, did you ever 
think that a profitable school of instruc- 
tion for salesmen could be started ? 
There's a great field here for some 
ex-traveling salesmen to use his past 
experience profitably. 

" Take dealing with buyers, for in- 
stance ; what a course of study that calls 
for alone ! Of course there can be no 
instruction that will teach a salesman how 
to successfully approach every buyer, 
but there are a few principles and laws 
w^hich every salesman ought to know, 
but doesn't. For example, I believe that 



112 SOME SALESMEN AND OTHERS. 

after the salesman has announced the 
name of the firm he travels for, he should, 
without being officious, be sure that the 
buyer knows his own name. Quite a 
little important point, and one which is 
frequently overlooked. 

" After a man has been traveling for 
some time, he will find out that buyers 
are only human beings after all. You 
have^^/ to be a diplomat to succeed as 
a salesman. Five minutes* talk with a 
buyer ought to be enough. Then size 
him up and proceed cautiously. How 
often has a good story helped to sell a bill 
of goods ! How often a word too much 
or too little has killed a sale ! How 
often has the knowledge (discreetly used) 
of a buyer's ' pet hobby ' been the only 
means of making a sale ! 

" To sum it all up, to be a successful 
salesman you've got to be prepared to 
take an interest in everything on earth. 
In other words, as a newspaper man says 
of his vocation, to be' newborn every day.' 



SOME SALESMEN AND OTHERS. II3 

" Some good writer will make a hit one 
of these days with a series of cigar char- 
acter sketches, making the cigars tell the 
story of their life and adventures. For 
instance, what a story a tenement-house 
cigar could tell ! The people it has as- 
sociated with from start to finish, and its 
vicissitudes. You can easily see there's 
a wealth of literary material here. 

" I remember very well the first tene- 
ment-house cigars which were put on the 
market. The salesmen were nothing but 
peddlers. They went out on the road 
with their stock of cigars, and, like the 
fish peddlers, didn't come home until 
they had sold out. 

"Salesmen for the tenement-house 
concerns were versatile characters in the 
early days. They had to be. A friend 
of mine who travels for one of these 
houses was suddenly wired to come 
home when he was doing a good busi- 
ness. He couldn't understand it until he 
arrived at the factory. He found a red- 



114 SOME SALESMEN AND OTHERS. 

hot strike in progress and an excited 
lot of cigarmakers outside the building 
about to break in the door and attack 
those working inside. Climbing through 
a back window he grabbed a piece of 
lead pipe and guarded the door just as 
the strikers were about to force it open. 
It wasn't exactly a * lead pipe cinch ' for 
him, but he stood his ground until his 
employers had a chance to go for the 
police. 

" When they arrived on the scene his 
work was over, and he walked right out 
among the crowd of strikers, boarded a 
train out of town, and the next day was 
selling cigars as if nothing had happened. 

" About the worst cigars are made in 
Pennsylvania by the farmers and their 
families during the winter. The tobacco 
is of course grown on their own land, 
and they make a good living by filling in 
the winter months making these fire- 
brands. They are sold to all sorts of 
strange people and fakirs, and are often 



SOME SALESMEN AND OTHERS. II5 

known as ' scheme cigars '; that is, they 
are sold with clocks, cheap watches, and 
pictures. 

" A strong, muscular traveling man 
who represented one of these scheme- 
cigar concerns, told me not long ago that 
he is physically unable to smoke his own 
samples. He wipes out a good many 
quiet old grudges with these cigars during 
a year. 

" Historical names are to my mind by 
far the best to give cigars. They recall 
so much and linger with you when other 
names are forgotten. There's the flavor 
of romance about them. Your favorite 
heroes are carried back to your boyhood 
schooldays with pleasant memories, and 
in spite of yourself when you go to buy a 
cigar, some historical name is on the tip 
of your tongue. 

*' In spite of the fact that the cigar 
trade is just as cold-blooded as any other 
when it comes to doing business, still 
no one can deny that in the poorest 



Il6 SOME SALESMEN AND OTHERS. 

and meanest cigar, there is, or ought to 
be, a certain sentiment which is not as- 
sociated with any other manufactured 
article. From the green fields of tobacco 
to the cigar in a box surrounded by 
bright labels and ribbons, it is always a 
picturesque creation. There is nothing 
that will take its place on this earth. 
And since that is so, let me offer you one 
of my special brand.'* 

The '' Colonel " lit his cigar and the 
writer joined him. After a few puffs, he 
said, ** Nothing else in the world except a 
cigar could put an end to my rambUng 
remarks." In a few minutes he was lost 
in a cloud, and the interview ended. 



PUFFS. 117 



PUFFS. 

About four and a quarter billion 
cigars were manufactured in this country 
last year, and the government got the 
"rake off" — over twelve million dollars. 

Tobacco in any form is good for the 
teeth. (Please don't dispute this.) This 
doesn't mean that it takes the place of a 
tooth brush. That's a different propor- 
tion altogether, as they say in Colorado. 

The famous Vuelta Abajo district 
will not be very much in evidence next 
year as far as producing tobacco is con- 
cerned. Already at this writing the '96 
crop is only one-tenth of what it usually 
is, and the tobacco garden of Cuba has 
been devastated to a condition of sadness 
which nothing except war could accom- 
plish. 

But while this portion of the island is 
only waiting to be permitted to breathe a 



Il8 PUFFS. 

little new life, it is still the same soil 
and climate. And nowhere else on 
*' God's green acres " grows a plant equal 
in fragrance and aroma to the tobacco 
raised in the Vuelta Abajo (" The Lower 
Turn ") district. It is the Sunset Land 
of Cuba — the tail of the island — not un- 
like the shape of an alligator. It is in the 
province of Pinar del Rio — " The Pine 
of the River" — about 150 miles long 
and 40 wide, the tobacco growing portion 
being only one-half of the province in 
length and width. 

It is a diversified country. Here a sea- 
coast, there a forest, now a series of 
rocky hills skirted by a valley of flat 
lands where grows the beautiful plant. 

He who smokes and lays away. 
Will smoke the same another day. 

Mme. Helena Modjeska, one of the 
most charming of women and certainly 
an actress, if there ever was one, smokes 
cigarettes. And there are people who 



PUFFS. 119 

say that no lady will ever smoke a cigar- 
ette. According to that no gentleman 
will smoke a cigar, much less a pipe. 

And yet we have smoked with some 
very gentle-men. 

A cigar is a cigar for a' that. 

Most men of talent and genius use or 
have used tobacco in some form. Those 
who don't, while they are none the less 
great, are surely less happy. What a 
round of reveries and delightful musings 
they have missed ! Napoleon, for in- 
stance, if he had only learned to smoke, 
might have made a better record for him- 
self, certainly a more humane one, and 
his days of St. Helena would have been 
so calm, peaceful, and reflective that he 
would have given us a study of the times 
(had he smoked) that would now be 
among the classics of literature. 

Look at the '* big smokers " of to-day, 
and outside of their greatness what 
" good fellows " they are. Here are 



120 PUFFS. 

some of them — Thomas A. Edison, Sir 
Henry Irving, Buffalo Bill, Bismarck, 
Prince of Wales, Marion Crawford, 
Richard Mansfield, Colonel Ingersoll, 
Henry George, Henry Watterson, James 
Gordon Bennett, Frank Work, Carl 
Schurz, Speaker Reed, Francis Wilson, 
De Wolf Hopper, and lots of others. 

A CRITIC once discovered that the great 
difference between two celebrated French 
painters. Decamps and Horace Vernet, 
was mainly the effect of their habits as 
users of tobacco. The French Murillo, 
the Oriental colorist, the sublime 
Decamps, smoked a pipe. Vernet toyed 
with the cigarette. 

ON A BROKEN PIPE. 

Neglected now it lies, a cold clay form. 
So late with living inspirations warm ; 
Type of all other creatures formed of 

clay, 
What more than it for epitaph have 

they? 



PUFFS. 121 

Tobacco, some say, is a potent narcotic, 
That rules half the world in a way quite 

despotic ; 
So to punish him well for his wicked and 

merry tricks. 
We'll burn him forthwith, as they used 

to do heretics. 

A GOOD name for a cigar is at any time 
worth one hundred dollars per letter. 
There is no other trade that uses or possi- 
bly can use so many titles for its wares. 
The thousands of beautiful names given 
to cigars show that cigar manufacturers 
are a very appreciative lot of people, and 
are quite as much (if not more) advanced 
in the philosophy and poetry of life as any 
other class of business men. 

A glance at the registrations of cigar 
names will verify the above at any time. 
There is scarcely a name of history, 
romance, and song which could be used 
in good taste but what is used on the 
cover of a cigar box. A young man who 



122 PUFFS. 

thought he had a " good thing " recently 
submitted one hundred names to the 
Tobacco Leaf, He found all but four 
of them had been used, and he went sadly 
away, leaving the names behind. 



I OWE to smoking, more or less, 
Through life the whole of my success ; 
With my cigar I'm sage and wise. 
Without, I'm dull as cloudy skies. 
When smoking, all my ideas soar. 
When not they sink upon the floor. 
The greatest men have all been smokers, 
And so were all the greatest jokers. 
Then ye who'd bid adieu to care 
Come here and smoke it into air. 



J. Dyer Ball, Esq., in his b'ook 
" Things Chinese," says concerning pipe 
(tobacco) smoking in China : " There are 
two kinds of pipes in use : the dry pipe and 
the water pipe. The latter is a copy of the 
Indian hookah ; it consists of a receptacle 



PUFFS. 123 

for the water into which a tube-like 
piece, about the size of a small finger, is 
inserted ; the upper end of this tube con- 
tains a small cavity into which the tobacco 
is put. The smoke is inhaled through 
the water up the pipe part, which is a 
tube about a foot long gradually narrow- 
ing and bending over at the mouthpiece. 
These pipes are made of an alloy of 
copper, zinc, nickel, and sometimes a little 
silver, and are used by ladies and gentle- 
men. 

" The other pipes are often made of 
bamboo, as far as the stems are con- 
cerned, and vary in length from a few 
feet to a few inches. The bowls, of 
metal, are small, holding scarcely more 
than a thimbleful of tobacco ; a few whiffs 
exhaust them, and, with the gentleman or 
lady, a servant is ready who steps up, 
takes the pipe, empties out the ashes, 
refills it, sticks it into the mouth of his 
master or mistress, and lights it with a 
paper spill." 



124 PUFFS. 

In the Quartier Latin of Paris the pipe 
has ever been the great consoler in the 
bachelor homes of Bohemian artists, and 
has ever usurped the sway of w^omen, 
as in the case of the artist Gavarni, who 
on his deathbed is reported to have said 
to a friend : *' I leave you my wife and 
my pipe ; take care of my pipe." 

NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS. 

An Englishman and a Frenchman 
were traveling together in a diligence, 
and both smoking. Monsieur did all in 
his power to draw his phlegmatic fellow- 
passenger into conversation, but to no 
purpose. At last, with a superabundance 
of politeness, he apologized for drawing 
his attention to the fact that the ash of 
his cigar had fallen on his waistcoat, and 
that a spark was endangering his neck- 
erchief. 

The Englishman, now thoroughly 
aroused, exclaimed : " Why the devil 



PUFFS. 125 

can't you let me alone ! Your coat-tail 
has been on fire for the last ten minutes, 
but I didn't bother you about it ! " 

TOBACCO AND THE PLAGUE. 

While the Great Plague raged in Lon- 
don, tobacco was recommended by the 
faculty, and generally taken as a prevent- 
ive against infection. Pepys records the 
follov^ing on the 7th of June, 1665: " The 
hottest day that ever I felt in my life. 
This day, much against my will, I did in 
Drury Lane see two or three houses 
marked with a red cross upon the doors, 
and * Lord, have mercy upon us ! * writ 
there ; which was a sad sight to me, be- 
ing the first of the kind, to my remem- 
brance, I ever saw. It put me into an ill 
conception of myself and my smell, so 
that I was forced to buy some roll to- 
bacco to smell and chew, which took away 
the apprehension.'* 

Further, it was popularly reported that 
no tobacconists or their households were 



126 



PUFFS. 



afflicted by the plague. Physicians who 
visited the sick took it very freely ; the 
men who went round with the dead carts 
had their pipes continually alight. This 
gave tobacco a new popularity, and it 
again took the high medical position ac- 
corded to it by the physicians of the 
French Court. 

If a cigar kills you it's bad. 

Let him now smoke who never smoked 

before, 
And he who always smoked now smoke 

the more. 




LBJe12 



